7  / 


Ai 


27 


THIS  volume  is  published  as  a  memorial  of  my  father,  but  it  is 
not  a  memoir,  for  this  I  did  not  dare  attempt.  I  have  endeavored 
only  to  select  and  edit  such  of  his  writings,  public  and  private,  as 
seemed  most  characteristic  and  appropriate.  The  manuscripts 
were  intended  solely  for  his  own  eye,  and  were  written  hastily 
at  night  after  hard  days'  work,  and  with  many  alterations  and 
interlineations.  The  proofreading  demanded  what  I  do  not  pos- 
sess, —  a  fund  of  learning,  full  and  accurate,  and  akin  to  his  own. 
This  has  compelled  very  slow  progress  for  almost  two  full  years, 
and  an  amount  of  hard  work  and  study  which  I  had  not  imagined, 
and  which  found  me  "  not  prepared."  Many  times  on  many 
pages  have  I  wished  that  even  for  a  moment  I  might  turn  to  him 
for  the  clear  explanation  I  well  knew  he  could  give  of  some  place 
that  seemed  extremely  hard  to  me.  In  the  printing  of  Latin 
words,  following  some  of  the  earlier  of  his  published  papers,  diph- 
thongs have  been  printed  with  the  ligature,  and  some  other  old- 
fashioned  methods  have  been  used,  which  now  I  could  not  alter 
even  if  I  would.  The  detection  and  correction  of  a  number  of 
errors  in  the  stereotyped  proofs  is  due  to  assistance  kindly  ren- 
dered by  my  friend  and  classmate  Professor  William  Carey 
Poland,  and  which  I  gratefully  acknowledge.  I  wish  also  to 
thank  the  many  friends  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  information, 
and  especially  to  thank  Professor  George  P.  Fisher,  D.  D.,  for 
his  appreciative  and  scholarly  Memorial  Address. 

The  number  and  variety  of  persons  with  whom  my  father  was 
personally  or  intellectually  acquainted  may  be  seen  to  some  extent 
in  the  Index  of  this  volume,  —  names  of  contemporaries  men- 
tioned by  him  being  given,  as  far  as  possible,  in  full.  I  have 


IV 


often  felt  in  the  moments  —  all  too  few  —  which  I  have  been 
permitted  to  pass  witli  him  in  his  old  age,  that  during  a  life  spent 
in  teaching  the  lore  of  the  ancients  to  the  young,  he  himself  had 
lieen  learning  constantly  by  mental  companionship  with  his  pupils 
the  secret  of  youth.  This  characteristic  seems  to  me  to  be  dis- 
cernible in  the  masterly  likeness  of  my  father  which  the  alumni 
of  Brown  presented  to  the  University.  It  is  my  hope  that  in  the 
jMiges  of  this  Memorial  Volume  also  may  be  seen  not  alone  his 
accurate  scholarship  and  wide  culture,  but  his  genial  nature  and 
devout  spirit,  and,  drawn  by  his  own  pen,  his  portrait  of  himself. 

Inasmuch  as  the  greater  part  of  my  father's  life  was  dedicated 
to  Brown  University,  I  feel  that  I  cannot  do  otherwise  than  dedi- 
cate to  the  alumni  of  Brown,  who  in  more  than  a  half  century  of 
classes  have  been  his  pupils,  this  memorial  of  his  life.  This  vol- 
ume is  the  most  enduring  monument  within  my  ability  to  erect  to 
his  memory,  and  I  believe  it  is  also  the  most  useful  one  to  the 
college  which  he  loved  so  well.  Upon  the  front  of  Sayles  Me- 
morial Hall  are  engraved  the  simple  and  fitting  words,  written  by 
my  father,  "  FiLio  PATER  POSVIT."  I  had  never  suspected  the 
"  limae  labor  "  which  he  had  given  to  this  short  sentence  until 
after  his  death,  when  I  found  among  his  papers  a  half  sheet  cov- 
ered with  other  mottoes  and  beginnings  of  mottoes  which  he  had 
written  and  erased  and  emended  and  rejected.  I  therefore  feel 
that  it  will  be  a  quite  excusable  plagiarism  if,  in  imitation  of  his 
words,  I  inscribe  upon  this  page  this  sentence,  so  expressive  of  my 
feelings,  PATRI  FILIVS  POSVIT. 

WILLIAM  ENSIGN  LINCOLN. 
PITTSBURGH,  PA.,  January  1,  1894. 


CONTENTS. 


Portrait  of  Professor  Lincoln  (2Etat.  60)      ....    Frontispiece 

MEMORIAL  ADDRESS,  BY  PROF.  GEORGE  P.  FISHER,  LL.  D.        .        .  1 

II. 

"  NOTES  OF  MY  LIFE  " 22 

'  DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE,  1833-1834 27 

DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN  COLLEGE,  1836-1837 34 

j  DIARY  AT  NEWTON  THEOLOGICAL  INSTITUTION,  1838-1839         .        .  45 

DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY,  1841-1842           ...  61 

LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844 67 

DIARY  AND  LETTERS,  EUROPE,  1857 114 

III. 

The  Herkomer  Portrait  (JEt&t.  69)         .....     Facing  page  150 

i  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  GOETHE'S  FAUST  (1868) 151 

GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI  (1869) 185 

ROME  AND  THE  ROMANS  OF  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE  (1870)         .        .  208 

THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS  (1872)    . 232 

}  THE  RELATION  OF  PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY  TO  CHRISTIAN  TRUTH  (1873)  259 

PLATO'S  REPUBLIC  (1873) 273 

ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS  (1874) 296 

THE  POEM  OF  LUCRETIUS  (1875)       . 315 

THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS  (1875) 337 

THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES  (1876)     ....  356 

ROMAN  WOMEN  IN  THE  FIRST  CENTURY  OF  THE  EMPIRE  (1877)       .  378 

TACITUS  (1878) 402 

GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION  (1879) 427 

DEAN  STANLEY  ON  BAPTISM  (1879) 456 

PROFESSOR  TYNDALL'S  BELFAST  ADDRESS 461 

FROUDE'S  C^SAR  (1880) 464 

MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS  (1881) 484 

THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS  (1882) 503 

OLD  AGE  (1883) 524 

JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL  (1884) 544 

THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD  VON  RANKE  (1889) 568 

IV. 

APPENDIX 585 

INDEX  .  ,627 


MEMORIAL  ADDEESS    ON   THE    CHARACTER  AND 
SERVICES  OF  JOHN  LARKIN  LINCOLN. 

DELIVERED  TUESDAY,  JUNE  21,  1892,  IN  THE  FIRST  BAPTIST  MEETING- 
HOUSE, PROVIDENCE,  BY  PROFESSOR  GEORGE  P.  FISHER,  LL.  D.,  OF  YALE 
UNIVERSITY. 

ONCE  more  we  have  entered  this  ancient  sanctuary,  to  many  of 
us  full  of  the  memories  of  by-gone  days.  We  have  come  back  to 
the  scenes  of  our  youth;  but  where  are  the  men  to  whom  we 
looked  up  as  our  teachers  and  guides,  who  followed  our  departing 
steps  with  their  blessing,  and  honored  us  with  their  lasting  friend- 
ship ?  Vanished  are  the  faces  that  once,  when  we  returned  to  these 
college  anniversaries,  looked  on  us  with  an  almost  paternal  kind- 
ness !  Silent  are  the  voices  whose  familiar  tones  haunt  the  memory 
as  echoes  from  afar !  We  rejoice  in  the  growth  and  prosperity  of 
the  institution  where  our  youth  was  nurtured.  Yet  there  recur  to 
us,  unbidden,  the  poet's  words  :  — 

"  It  is  not  now  as  it  hath  been  of  yore  :  — 
Turn  whereso'er  I  may, 
By  night  or  day, 
The  things  that  I  have  seen  I  now  can  see  no  more." 

We  feel  the  truth  of  the  saying  that  even  the  objects  of  nature 
about  us 

"  Do  take  a  sober  coloring  from  an  eye 
That  hath  kept  watch  o'er  man's  mortality." 

It  is  true  that  when  we  meet  our  college  classmates,  we  fall  under 
a  strange  and  pleasing  illusion.  Holmes  illustrates  in  one  of  his 
humorous  poems  how  the  intervening  years  disappear.  All  titles 
of  honor  are  forgotten,  all  acquired  gravity  dispelled.  Again  we 
are  boys,  transported  back  to  the  moods  of  feeling  that  were  ours 
when  we  recited  and  played  together,  and  life  had  the  brightness 
of  a  holiday.  But  even  in  a  gathering  of  classmates,  more  som- 
bre thoughts  arise  when  the  roll  is  called,  and  they  close  their 
ranks  to  fill  up  the  gaps  made  by  those  who  have  fallen  by  the 
way.  When  we  have  occasion  to  look  on  our  fellow  graduates  in 


2  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

a  body,  in  their  long  gradation  from  the  youngest  to  the  oldest, 
we  behold  as  in  a  picture  the  changes  wrought  in  the  progress  of 
the  years.  We  see  how  the  stages  of  human  life  follow  one  an- 
other in  their  order  of  succession,  —  each  imprinting  its  char- 
acteristic stamp  upon  form  and  feature,  and  equally  upon  the  cast 
of  thought.  At  one  end  of  the  procession  are  the  youngest,  with 
their  diplomas  in  their  hands,  light-hearted,  peering  into  the  fu- 
ture, eager  for  the  race.  At  the  other  end  are  the  oldest,  with 
no  surplus  vivacity  to  expend,  halting,  perhaps,  under  the  burden 
of  years.  It  is  the  contrast  so  vividly  pictured  in  the  lines  of 
Schiller :  — 

"  Youth  with  thousand-masted  vessel 
Ploughs  the  sea  at  morning  light ; 
Age,  in  shattered  skiff  escaping, 
Calmly  drifts  to  port  at  night." 

I  have  been  led  into  this  vein  of  remark  by  the  circumstance 
that  Professor  Lincoln,  the  eminent  scholar  whose  merits  and 
whose  long  service  to  the  University  we  are  met  to  commemorate, 
is  the  last  of  the  company  of  teachers  who  constituted  the  Fac- 
ulty when  the  class  to  which  I  belong  was  in  college.  Only  one 
of  them  is  now  living,  and  many  years  have  passed  since  he  left 
the  institution.  The  last  link  that  connected  myself  and  my  con- 
temporaries with  the  corps  of  instructors  here  has  now  been  re- 
moved. When  I  was  honored  by  the  invitation  of  the  Faculty  to 
deliver  the  address  to-day,  my  first  impulse  was  to  decline  the 
request,  partly,  I  confess,  from  an  instinctive  desire  to  avoid  a  feel- 
ing of  sadness  which  the  associations  of  the  time  and  place,  and 
the  thronging  recollections  of  the  past,  could  not  fail  to  awaken ; 
but,  mainly,  for  the  reason  that,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  one  of  the 
younger  pupils  of  Professor  Lincoln,  who  had  been  more  conver- 
sant with  him  in  the  later  years,  might  be  better  qualified  to  do 
justice  to  some  aspects  of  his  character  and  work.  But  I  was 
moved  by  a  sense  of  loyalty  to  the  University  to  comply  with  the 
call  of  the  Faculty ;  and  I  was  influenced  in  so  doing  by  a  fact 
which  may  have  had  something  to  do  in  prompting  their  choice,  — 
the  fact,  namely,  that  I  was  a  pupil  of  Professor  Lincoln  at  the 
very  beginning  of  his  academic  career.  This  fact  must  be  my 
apology  if  personal  reminiscences  should  mingle  at  the  outset  in 
the  remarks  which  I  have  to  make  respecting  him  and  his  work. 

Professor  Lincoln  commenced  his  duties  as  Professor  of  Latin 
in  the  autumn  of  1844,  when  my  class  was  just  entering  upon  the 


ON  JOHN    LARKIN   LINCOLN.  3 

Sophomore  year.  Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  to  glance  at  the 
Faculty,  as  the  Faculty  was  then  composed.  At  the  head  of  the 
company  of  teachers  was  Dr.  Wayland,  then  but  forty-eight  years 
of  age,  although  he  was  thus  early  referred  to  in  the  talk  of  stu- 
dents as  "  the  old  Doctor."  Unaffected  in  manner,  there  was  yet 
that  in  his  looks  and  bearing  which  bespoke  a  kingly  man.  His 
strong  personality  cast  a  spell  upon  all  who  approached  him.  His 
love  of  truth,  his  deep  sense  of  right,  and  his  independence  of 
the  bonds  of  party,  were  a  lifelong  inspiration  to  his  pupils.  How 
easily  do  we  recall  his  portly  figure,  as  he  walked  to  or  from  his 
college  room,  his  head  bent  forward,  with  a  slow  gait,  as  of  one 
absorbed  in  thought !  Next  in  age  to  the  President  —  being 
about  three  years  younger  —  was  the  beloved  Caswell,  grave 
and  genial,  —  genial  and  grave  in  an  equal  proportion,  —  whose 
benignant  spirit  was  never  ruffled  by  a  gust  of  passion.  Then 
followed  Professor  Chace,  keen  in  perception,  strict  in  the  dis- 
charge of  official  duty,  never  holding  a  loose  rein,  equally  expert 
in  the  analysis  of  a  chemical  compound  and  in  decomposing  a 
state  of  consciousness  into  its  elements  of  thought ;  and  Professor 
Gammell,  the  polished  critic,  the  sworn  foe  of  vulgarity  in  char- 
acter and  manners,  as  well  as  in  style,  devoted  in  his  service  to 
all  who  could  be  drawn  into  sympathy  with  his  ideals  of  culture. 
With  these  was  associated  a  much  younger  man,  our  faithful 
teacher  of  Greek,  Professor  Boise,  the  only  one  of  the  number 
who  survives.  Into  this  group  of  men  —  we  can  see  them  now  as 
they  sat  together  on  the  platform  of  the  old  chapel  —  Professor 
Lincoln  was  introduced  as  a  colleague. 

How  well  he  was  equipped  for  the  place  will  appear  if  we  con- 
sider his  course  of  preparation  for  it.  He  was  born  in  Boston  on 
the  23d  of  February,  1817,  and  was  consequently  at  that  time  in 
his  twenty-eighth  year.  The  occupation  of  his  father,  Mr.  En- 
sign Lincoln,  was  that  of  a  printer  and  publisher.  He  was  a  man 
of  more  than  ordinary  intelligence,  of  perfect  uprightness,  and  of 
earnest  piety.  Although  a  layman  and  in  business,  he  was  li- 
censed to  preach  in  the  Baptist  communion,  to  which  he  belonged. 
Professor  Lincoln  in  brief  "  Notes  "  of  his  own  life,  which  I  have 
had  the  privilege  of  reading,  recalls  with  tender  feeling  the  death 
of  his  mother,  which  occurred  when  he  was  only  four  years  old. 
This  bereavement  brought  him  into  closer  intimacy  with  his 
father,  of  whom  he  says  :  "  My  dear  father  was  one  of  the  best  of 
men,  always  cheerful  and  kind,  with  a  wonderful  equableness  of 


4  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

temper.  I  never  heard  him  speak  petulantly  or  angrily  ;  but  his 
grave  and  troubled  look,  if  I  did  wrong,  was  enough  to  break  me 
into  penitence.  .  .  .  How  loving  he  was  at  home,  and  how  I 
loved  to  be  in  his  lap  in  the  evening  and  hear  him  talk !  .  .  .  His 
example  and  life  have  gone  with  me  through  all  years  as  a  con- 
stant guide  and  helper  in  all  temptation  and  trouble.  ...  I  used 
to  go  with  my  father  out  of  town  when  he  went  to  preach  for  dif- 
ferent churches.  How  many  miles  I  have  driven  him  out  of  Bos- 
ton and  back  again,  and  how  good  and  thoughtful  he  was  in  talk- 
ing to  me ! "  Mr.  Lincoln  was  fitted  for  college  mainly  at  the 
Boston  Latin  School,  under  masters,  famous  in  their  day,  among 
whom  were  Gould,  D  ilia  way,  Leverett,  and  Dixwell.  On  the  list 
of  his  schoolfellows  are  the  names  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Dr. 
George  E.  Ellis,  Judge  Devens,  and  Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale. 
He  entered  the  school  when  he  was  between  eight  and  nine  years 
old.  The  course  ran  through  five  years,  but  he  completed  it  in 
four.  At  the  anniversary,  he  had  assigned  to  him  the  delivery  of 
a  Latin  poem  of  his  own  composition.  To  quote  his  own  account 
of  it,  —  "I  remember  Mr.  Leverett  said  some  very  encouraging 
words  to  me  about  the  poem.  I  have  often  recalled  the  working 
over  that  poem  in  my  room  at  home.  And  yet  it  was  not  work 
exactly ;  it  came  to  me  quite  beyond  all  my  expectations.  I  had 
had  good  teaching,  and  had  the  quantities  of  words  and  syllables 
quite  accurate,  and  words  and  phrases  came  to  me  pretty  easily, 
and  I  made  out  thirty-eight  lines,  I  remember,  and  got  through 
the  delivery  pretty  well."  Surely  here  is  an  augury  of  future 
proficiency  in  Latin.  It  would  almost  seem,  from  his  simple 
account,  that  he 

"  Lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came." 

Being  only  thirteen  years  old,  he  was  too  young  to  be  sent  to  col- 
lege. Then  followed  a  year  in  the  High  School,  and  then  a  fifth 
year  in  the  Latin  School,  at  the  end  of  which,  as  being  at  the 
head  of  the  class,  the  valedictory,  and  the  Franklin  medal  with 
it,  were  awarded  to  him.  His  teachers  besought  his  father  to 
send  him  to  Harvard,  whither  they  said  all  the  valedictorians  be- 
fore him  had  gone.  But  his  father's  religious  affiliations  were 
with  Brown.  He  was  a  friend  of  Dr.  Wayland,  whose  fame  was 
extending,  and  with  it  the  reputation  of  the  college.  So  to  Brown 
he  was  sent,  entering  the  Freshman  class  in  the  autumn  of  1832. 
A  sore  grief  to  him  was  the  death  of  his  father,  at  the  end  of  the 


ON  JOHN  LARKIN  LINCOLN.  5 

first  term.  He  makes  grateful  mention  of  the  comfort  and  sym- 
pathy that  he  received  from  Dr.  Caswell  on  his  return  from  the 
sad  funeral  rites.  Of  his  college  days  he  writes :  "  I  was  a  boy  and 
full  of  vivacity,  and  found  many  companions  and  friends."  In 
his  Junior  year,  he  tells  us,  he  was  not  so  diligent  in  his  studies, 
but  rallied  and  did  good  work  in  his  Senior  year.  He  graduated 
with  honors  in  1836.  He  kept,  through  all  his  college  tempta- 
tions, the  purity  of  his  earlier  years,  always  avoiding  the  society 
of  the  vicious.  After  graduation  Mr.  Lincoln  spent  one  year  at 
Washington,  where  he  held  the  post  of  tutor  in  Columbian  Col- 
lege. The  work  there  was  in  some  respects  trying,  but  it  initiated 
him  in  the  practice  of  teaching.  Then  came  two  years  —  years, 
he  informs  us,  of  "  good  wholesome  study  and  progress  "  —  in  New- 
ton Theological  School.  During  the  second  year  at  Newton,  he 
came  into  close  relations  with  Dr.  Sears,  afterwards  President  of 
this  college,  a  scholar  of  remarkable  abilities  and  acquirements, 
who  had  made  himself  familiar  with  the  modern  German  learn- 
ing in  theology,  especially  in  the  department  of  church  history, 
in  which  he  was  a  proficient.  Of  Dr.  Sears,  Mr.  Lincoln  says :  he 
"  was  a  very  stimulating  teacher,  and  kindled  in  me  a  zeal  for 
learning  and  scholarship  and  progress  in  everything."  No  doubt 
this  year  was  an  epoch  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  intellectual  development, 
opening  before  him  new  ranges  of  thought  and  investigation. 
From  Newton  he  was  called  to  Brown,  in  1839,  and  here  as  tutor, 
during  the  next  two  years,  in  association  with  his  former  instruc- 
tors, his  habits  of  teaching  were  formed.  This  period  was  fol- 
lowed by  his  residence  abroad  for  three  years,  a  most  important 
era  in  his  experience,  for  which  the  preceding  years,  including  his 
time  of  study  at  Newton,  had  well  prepared  him,  and  to  which  he 
always  looked  back  with  the  utmost  thankfulness  and  pleasure. 
Two  years  he  spent  as  a  student  in  Germany,  the  first  at  Halle, 
and  the  second  at  Berlin.  The  third  year  was  mostly  devoted  to 
travel,  the  winter  being  passed  at  Rome. 

In  Germany,  while  his  attention  was  given  to  philology,  he  did 
not  drop  his  theological  studies.  At  Halle,  there  was  at  that 
period  a  cluster  of  eminent  teachers.  There  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
brought  into  contact,  in  the  lecture-rooms  and  in  social  life,  with 
Tholuck,  Gesenius,  Julius  Miiller,  Leo,  Erdmann,  Rodiger,  Bern- 
hardy,  —  most  of  them  men  of  world-wide  distinction  in  their  sev- 
eral branches  of  learning.  These  men,  Mr.  Lincoln  says,  "  were 
great  for  me,  giving  me  broader,  larger  views  than  I  had  ever 


6  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

had  of  study  and  attainments,  and  showing  me  what  and  how  to 
study."  The  second  year  was  spent  in  Berlin,  where  he  studied 
philology  with  Boeokh  and  Zumpt,  and  church  history  with  the 
illustrious  Neander,  and  where  he  profited  by  the  presence  of 
Ranke,  Schelling,  and  many  other  inspiring  teachers.  His  in- 
structors include  names  that  are  identified  with  the  progress  of 
modern  learning.  In  the  list  of  his  foreign  teachers  it  was  Tho- 
luck,  I  think,  with  whom  he  was  best  acquainted.  After  his  year 
at  Halle,  where  he  saw  much  of  this  distinguished  theologian,  he 
traveled  with  him  in  the  summer,  for  two  months,  in  Switzerland 
and  northern  Italy.  Tholuck  was  then  a  foremost  leader  of  the 
evangelical  reaction  against  the  Rationalism  of  that  time.  His 
mind  was  brilliant,  remarkably  versatile,  unceasingly  active,  stored 
with  vast  and  various  acquisitions.  Seldom  is  a  theologian  so 
gifted  with  imagination  and  eloquence.  His  lectures  and  dis- 
courses in  the  pulpit,  open  as  they  are  in  some  respects  to  criticism, 
were  always  irradiated  with  flashes  of  genius.  His  conversation 
was  full  of  spirit.  He  loved  the  society  of  students,  and  made 
them  his  companions.  Few  men  have  excelled  him  in  the  power 
of  kindling  the  minds  of  the  young.  Ten  years  later  than  the 
date  of  which  I  am  speaking,  I  knew  him  well ;  and  even  then, 
although  prematurely  old  from  excess  of  labor,  his  attractive  power 
was  very  remarkable.  Apart  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  testimony  on 
the  subject,  we  might  be  sure  that  a  close  intimacy  of  such  a 
teacher  with  such  a  pupil,  including  months  of  travel,  could  not 
fail  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  awakening  and  instructive.  The 
mention  of  the  teachers  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  that  land  of  scholars, 
and  of  the  particular  branches  that  he  studied,  conveys  no  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  atmosphere  that  he  breathed,  —  the  collective 
influences  of  literature  and  art  that  left  on  him  an  impress  never 
to  be  effaced.  In  one  of  his  published  essays  he  refers  to  the  rep- 
resentation of  the  play  of  Antigone  that  he  witnessed  at  Berlin, 
on  the  occasion  when,  under  the  auspices  of  that  patron  of  letters, 
Frederick  William  IV.,  this  tragedy,  translated  into  German,  was 
reproduced  on  the  stage,  with  the  aid  of  "  all  the  resources  of  his 
capital  in  learning  and  scholarship  and  musical  genius."  Looking 
back  to  that  scene,  after  a  long  interval,  Mr.  Lincoln  writes :  "  It 
was  an  imposing  spectacle  to  behold  ;  there  was  a  wealth  of  Men- 
delssohn music  to  delight  the  ear,  and  yet  those  sights  and  sounds 
have  long  since  faded  from  the  mind."  .  .  .  But  "  even  now  there 
seems  to  be  seen  that  stately  figure  of  Antigone,  and  her  voice 


ON  JOHN  LARKIN  LINCOLN.  7 

seems  to  be  heard,  pronouncing  her  faith  '  in  the  unwritten  and 
unchanging  laws  of  God,'  and  her  purpose  to  abide  by  that  faith 
even  unto  death." 

In  the  autumn  of  1843  Mr.  Lincoln  spent  some  time  at  Geneva, 
engaged  in  the  study  of  French.  Then  he  repaired  to  Rome, 
where  he  remained  for  the  winter  and  a  part  of  the  ensuing  spring, 
studying  the  classical  authors  in  the  midst  of  the  scenes  and  relics 
that  breathe  new  life  upon  their  pages.  He  attended  weekly  the 
meeting  of  the  Archaeological  Society  on  the  Capitoline  Hill, 
meeting  there  a  gathering  of  students  that  included  Grote,  Preller, 
William  M.  Hunt,  our  distinguished  historian  Mr.  Parkman,  and 
many  other  kindred  spirits.  Leaving  Rome,  he  tarried  for  brief 
intervals  in  Paris  and  London,  reaching  home  in  the  autumn,  in 
time  to  commence  his  work  as  assistant  professor  of  Latin,  —  his 
promotion  to  the  full  professorship  taking  place  at  the  end  of  one 
year's  service. 

Three  years  he  had  spent  under  circumstances  in  the  highest 
degree  propitious  for  his  intellectual  development,  gathering  up 
all  the  while  stores  of  knowledge.  The  things  of  the  spirit  are 
more  precious  than  material  treasures.  I  count  it  no  extrava- 
gance to  say  of  this  young  American  scholar  that,  like  the  Roman 
conquerors  of  old,  with  whose  achievements  he  was  so  familiar,  he 
had  come  back  with  the  spoils  of  kingdoms,  and  ascended  the  hill 
sacred  to  learning,  to  bring  them  to  the  door  of  his  Alma  Mater. 

The  class  of  which  I  was  a  member  had  been  instructed  in 
Latin,  in  the  Freshman  year,  by  a  refined  gentleman  and  very 
competent  teacher,  Mr.  Henry  S.  Frieze,  who  died  in  1889,  after 
a  long  and  honorable  service  in  the  University  of  Michigan.  Dur- 
ing the  year  the  news  had  reached  us  that  a  new  professor  in  this 
department  was  to  be  installed  in  office  in  the  next  autumn.  No 
small  curiosity  existed  as  to  what  manner  of  man  he  would  prove 
to  be.  Our  first  impressions  were  favorable.  The  professor, 
when  he  appeared  in  the  class-room,  had  the  air  and  manner  of 
one  who  was  not  a  stranger  to  the  world  of  men  beyond  the  col- 
lege walls.  There  was  missing  a  certain  constraint  that  college 
officers  in  those  days  naturally  wore  in  contact  with  their  pupils. 
For  the  intercourse  between  professor  and  pupil  was  less  frank 
and  more  conventional  than  at  present.  There  was  much  more 
surveillance  over  the  students.  The  exercise  of  authority  was 
more  visible  and  continuous.  Mr.  Lincoln's  manner  was  not 
wanting  in  self-respect,  but  was  unconstrained.  Then  he  early 


8  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

showed,  on  a  certain  occasion,  an  openness  and  a  disposition  to 
put  faith  in  the  class.  We  represented  to  him,  and  with  truth, 
that  he  was  giving  out  too  long  lessons.  He,  at  once,  with  the 
utmost  grace  and  good-nature,  said  that  he  would  shorten  them, 
and  kept  his  word.  It  was  evident  that  he  did  not  think  of  a  col- 
lege as  a  prison  where  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  work  was 
to  be  exacted  from  reluctant  inmates,  and  where  any  remonstrance 
deserved  a  rebuff.  Then  there  was  an  occasional  flash  of  humor 
to  enliven  the  hour.  For  example,  when  we  were  on  the  opening 
passage  of  the  "  Ars  Poetica,"  where  Horace  protests  against  in- 
congruous descriptions  and  imagery,  illustrating  his  point  by  like 
absurdities  in  painting,  and  apostrophizes  an  artist  who  plumed 
himself  on  his  skill  in  depicting  a  cypress,  and  hence  brought  that 
tree  into  the  picture  of  a  shipwrecked  sailor  striking  for  the  land, 
—  our  teacher  looked  up,  and  remarked  with  a  smile  :  "  He  was 
great  on  cypresses  !  "  But  what  struck  us  from  the  first,  and  im- 
pressed us  always,  was  the  fact  that,  although  an  accurate  linguist, 
and  never  careless  of  the  niceties  of  the  language,  he  was  vastly 
more.  He  was  the  interpreter  of  his  author  in  a  far  deeper  way. 
The  words  were  dealt  with  as  the  windows  through  which  to  dis- 
cern his  thoughts  and  sentiments,  and  to  gain  access  to  his  inmost 
life  and  spirit.  Moreover,  under  this  inspiring  guide,  we  were 
brought  into  a  living  relation  to  the  conditions  under  which  the 
author  wrote,  and  to  the  whole  life  of  antiquity.  Here,  to  use 
one  of  Carlyle's  phrases,  was  no  mere  gerund-grinder.  There  was 
genuine  historical  feeling  and  literary  taste  and  insight.  To  some 
at  least,  it  was  a  discovery  that  Roman  men  and  women  had  any 
other  occupation  than  to  furnish  the  raw  material  of  Latin  gram- 
mars and  dictionaries.  Classical  instruction  in  this  country  has 
passed  through  a  number  of  phases.  There  was  a  time  when  there 
was  a  certain  relish  for  the  Latin  authors,  especially,  —  for  the 
Greek  authors  were  little  read.  It  was  common  to  garnish  public 
addresses  by  quotations  —  a  little  hackneyed,  it  might  be  —  from 
Virgil  and  Horace  and  the  orations  of  Cicero.  But  in  the  instruc- 
tion given  in  school  and  college,  the  grammatical  groundwork 
was  for  the  most  part  sadly  defective.  At  length  there  sprung  up 
a  reform  in  this  particular,  owing  in  a  considerable  measure  to 
the  influence  of  German  scholarship.  One  result  of  this  reaction 
against  the  loose  methods  that  had  prevailed  was  an  absorbing 
devotion  to  grammar  and  lexicon.  Classical  instruction  was  re- 
solved into  a  linguistic  drill.  The  slovenly  teaching  in  nearly  all 


ON  JOHN  LARKIN  LINCOLN.  9 

the  preparatory  schools  might  have  been  alleged  as  an  apology  for 
this  grammatical  fanaticism.  College  professors  have  been  handi- 
capped by  being  compelled  to  travel  over  the  ground  which  had 
been  negligently  traversed  before.  In  truth,  a  minor  part  of  the 
blame  is  to  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  colleges.  The  great  defects 
of  education  in  this  country  have  been  in  the  first  sixteen  or  sev- 
enteen years  of  the  boy's  training.  Nevertheless,  I  believe  that 
the  opposition  to  classical  studies  is  due  about  as  much  to  the 
spiritless  way  in  which  they  have  been  taught  as  to  the  urgent 
demands  made  by  the  modern  languages  and  the  new  sciences. 
As  if  the  poets,  orators,  and  philosophers  of  antiquity  simply 
wrote  exercises  in  parsing !  How  could  a  scholar  care  anything 
for  the  contents  of  a  literature  when  he  was  forced  to  spend  all 
his  time  in  breaking  through  the  shell  ?  It  is  a  case  where  "  the 
letter  killeth."  The  distinction  of  Professor  Lincoln  lies  in  the 
enthusiasm  which  he  himself  felt,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  imparted, 
for  the  authors  whom  he  interpreted,  and  his  living  interest  in 
the  many-sided  intellectual  and  social  life  of  which  the  ancient 
literature  is  the  expression.  In  a  word,  Mr.  Lincoln  was,  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  word,  a  man  of  letters.  Even  when  he  jour- 
neyed, he  was  apt  to  take  a  Greek  or  Latin  writer  with  him,  for 
his  familiarity  with  Greek  as  well  as  Latin  authors  was  constantly 
growing. 

My  impressions  of  Professor  Lincoln  at  the  beginning  of  his 
work  in  college  are  confirmed  in  letters  written  to  me  by  several 
of  my  college  friends  and  contemporaries,  graduates  in  later 
classes.  President  Angell  writes  :  "  He  was  brimful  of  scholarly 
enthusiasm.  He  was  at  work  on  his  edition  of  Livy,  and  we  who 
were  at  once  set  to  reading  that  author  soon  caught  something  of 
the  zest  of  the  editor.  His  ardent  interest  in  whatever  author  the 
class  was  reading  was  contagious.  There  was  something  wonder- 
fully vital  and  inspiriting  in  his  teaching.  ...  I  remember  that 
I  used  to  think  that  the  Latin  poet  (Horace)  could  have  had  no 
more  genial  or  appreciative  companion  in  his  Sabine  house.  Pro- 
fessor Lincoln  had  a  nice  literary  sense,  which  especially  fitted 
him  to  guide  us  young  pupils  in  the  study  of  the  odes  of  Horace. 
I  am  sure  some  of  us  first  awoke  to  the  real  perception  of  poetic 
beauty."  In  the  same  vein,  Dr.  Murray,  the  Dean  of  the  Faculty 
at  Princeton,  writes :  "  He  loved  the  authors  he  taught,  and  he 
sought  earnestly  and  successfully  to  be  an  interpreter  of  them  to 
us.  .  .  .  The  brilliant  passages  from  Livy,  the  graceful  odes  from 


10  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

Horace,  the  weighty  sentences  of  Tacitus,  were  sure  to  elicit  from 
him  striking  comment.  I  do  not  think  any  of  his  classes  could 
ever  forget  with  what  interest  he  would  dwell  on  the  closing  pas- 
sages of  the  Agricola."  The  Hon.  Edward  L.  Pierce,  after  re- 
marks equivalent  to  the  foregoing,  adds :  "  His  voice  was  most 
attractive.  In  our  Freshman  year  (1846-47)  he  read  to  the  class 
Macaulay's  Lays.  His  reading  inspired  me,  and  I  then  made  my 
first  acquaintance  with  Macaulay.  .  .  .  He  [Professor  Lincoln] 
fully  enjoyed  his  work,  altogether  content  with  it,  —  never  indif- 
ferent or  perfunctory." 

As  Professor  Lincoln  was,  at  the  beginning,  in  the  presence  of 
his  classes,  so  he  continued  to  be  to  the  end,  but  with  increasing 
attractiveness  and  power.  In  his  earlier  years,  it  is  said  —  for  I 
never  observed  it  —  he  was  sometimes  caustic  in  dealing  with  the 
dull  and  careless.  But  college  teachers,  as  they  grow  older,  espe- 
cially if  they  come  to  have  children  of  their  own,  are  wont  to  grow 
more  lenient,  and  gentle  in  their  rebukes.  One  of  his  later  pupils 
and  a  colleague  remarks  respecting  him :  "  He  became  more 
patient  and  enduring  as  the  years  went  on,  and  though  he  could 
let  no  error  pass  unconnected,  he  was  content  with  rebuking  care- 
lessness with  some  dry,  humorous  criticism,  the  sting  of  which  did 
not  rankle  in  the  mind."  Professor  Poland  proceeds  to  speak  of 
his  assiduity  in  the  correction  of  all  the  exercises  in  Latin  compo- 
sition, which  were  often  piled  upon  his  table,  and  his  quickness  to 
recognize  and  appreciate  whatever  merit  he  discerned  in  them,  or 
in  any  of  the  work  done  by  his  pupils.  When  there  was  a  moral 
lesson  to  be  drawn  from  the  author,  he  never  failed  to  point  it 
out.  "  To  him,"  says  Professor  Poland,  "  the  classics  were  the 
*  Humanities,'  and  he  taught  them  in  that  spirit,  and  used  them 
as  means  to  develop  in  his  students  a  noble  and  refined  ideal  of 
manhood." 

I  wish  now  to  speak  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  man  of  letters, 
independently  of  his  relation  as  an  academic  teacher.  Fortunately 
he  has  left  behind  him  ample  proofs  of  his  capacity  as  a  writer. 
His  editions  of  Livy,  Horace,  and  Ovid,  from  a  linguistic  point  of 
view,  were,  as  I  am  assured,  fully  abreast,  and  even  in  advance 
of,  the  standard  of  scholarship  at  the  time  when  they  were  issued. 
But  their  characteristic  merit  is  on  the  aesthetic  side.  His  literary 
perception  and  his  felicity  of  style  are  conspicuous  in  the  pre- 
liminary lives  of  Horace  and  Ovid,  and  in  the  quality  of  the 
notes  appended.  But  the  power  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  department 


ON  JOHN  LARKIN   LINCOLN.  11 

of  authorship  is  seen  especially  in  a  number  of  essays  which 
he  contributed  to  periodicals.  The  subjects  on  which  he  wrote 
indicate  the  bent  of  his  thought  and  the  direction  of  his  studies. 
Several  of  these  essays  were  first  read  at  meetings  of  the  Friday 
Club,  a  society  of  cultivated  gentlemen  which,  for  many  years, 
met  frequently  for  literary  converse  and  social  enjoyment.  I  will 
not  stop  to  dwell  on  an  early  article  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the 
"  Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  which  is  purely  of  an  historical  character.  It 
presents  an  elaborate  picture  of  ancient  Roman  life.  The  Papers 
which  I  should  single  out  as  of  cardinal  value  are  the  Review  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  Juventus  Mundi,  and  the  essays  on  the  relation  of 
Plato's  Philosophy  to  Christian  Truth,  on  the  Life  and  Teach- 
ings of  Sophocles,  and  on  Goethe's  Faust.  The  four  themes  — 
Homer,  Sophocles,  Plato,  Goethe  —  are  adapted  to  serve  as  a  test 
of  his  ability  to  appreciate  the  highest  productions  of  human 
genius  and  to  unfold  the  secret  of  their  power.  I  am  confident 
that  these  essays  must  elicit,  both  as  to  matter  and  form,  the 
cordial  admiration  of  all  discerning  critics.  They  are  not  simply 
rich  in  thought  and  beautiful  in  diction.  They  are  pervaded  by 
a  spontaneous  enthusiasm.  There  runs  through  them  a  flow  of 
eloquence,  never  transcending  the  bounds  of  good  taste,  which 
bears  the  reader  along,  as  on  the  crest  of  a  wave,  from  beginning 
to  end.  Let  me  briefly  touch  upon  certain  literary  characteristics 
of  the  author  as  they  are  disclosed  in  these  essays. 

One  is  struck  with  his  broad  conception  of  the  end  and  aim  of 
classical  studies.  They  are  prized,  not  merely  because  they  bring 
us  face  to  face  with  the  ancient  peoples  providentially  chosen  to 
be  the  founders  of  European  civilization.  Their  use  is  made  to 
extend  much  farther.  It  is  evident,  to  quote  Mr.  Lincoln's  own 
language,  in  "  those  tastes  for  all  that  is  beautiful  and  ennobling 
in  ancient  letters,  which  grew  up  insensibly  in  the  season  of 
youth,  under  the  propitious  influences  of  place  and  books,  and 
teachers  and  companions ;  the  lingering  witchery  of  eloquence  and 
song,  which  first  caught  the  ear  and  led  captive  the  soul ;  the 
enthusiastic  admiration  and  love  for  the  great  writers  of  antiquity, 
which  with  so  many  scholars  was  first  awakened  in  that  spring- 
time of  intellectual  life,  and  cherished  in  its  subsequent  periods, 
the  grace  of  manhood  and  the  solace  of  age."  But  this  is  not  all. 
Far  from  it.  Classical  studies,  it  is  affirmed,  may  do  far  more 
than  quicken  the  mind  and  discipline  the  taste.  Speaking  of 
"  the  comparative  method  "  that  is  winning  so  large  results  in 


12  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

every  branch  of  study,  our  author  predicts  even  grander  discoveries 
to  be  achieved  by  it.  "  As  we  think  of  its  onward  career,"  he 
says,  "we  seem  to  see  its  studious  followers,  in  brilliant  succession, 
even  as  the  runners  in  the  ancient  torch-race,  handing  along  the 
lights  of  science  by  the  successive  stages  of  their  course  of 
research,  the  eyes  and  energies  of  all  bent  upon  the  ultimate  goal, 
—  the  knowledge  of  one  united  race,  of  the  vast  and  varied 
interests  of  one  common  humanity.  It  is  indeed  the  unusual 
human  interest  inspired  by  this  method  of  study  that  makes  at 
once  its  worth  and  its  charm,  and  gives  it  a  hold  upon  all 
thoughtful  minds,  like  the  spell  of  a  fascination."  Under  this 
head,  he  claims  for  philological  studies,  in  which  the  method  was 
first  exemplified,  that  they  "are  the  true  Humaniora,  truly  hu- 
mane and  humanizing  studies."  In  another  place  he  distinctly 
sets  forth  what  he  considers  "  the  ultimate  end "  of  classical 
studies.  "  Not  alone,"  he  says,  "  to  form  a  basis  for  mental 
discipline  and  culture,  by  furnishing  models  of  consummate  excel- 
lence in  thought  and  expression,  are  these  studies  designed.  The 
true  and  ultimate  end  is  a  moral  and  religious  one, — the  knowledge, 
gained  by  a  deeper  and  maturer  study  of  classical  antiquity,  of 
the  place  and  function  of  all  ancient  philosophy,  letters,  art,  life, 
in  the  providential  order  of  the  world  in  preparing  the  way  for 
the  entrance  of  Christianity  into  human  life  and  history."  Holding 
this  comprehensive  view,  he  felt  earnestly  that  culture  and  religion 
must  be  united  in  the  objects  of  study  and  investigation.  "  We 
are  craving,"  he  says,  "  in  these  modern  Christian  days  the  fusion 
and  union  of  religion  and  culture ;  and  how  we  miss  it  often  in 
the  best  teaching  of  the  pen  and  the  voice,  culture  lacking  the 
inspiration  of  religion,  and  religion  failing  to  take  up  and  master 
the  resources  of  culture."  It  was  natural  that  he  should  direct 
his  attention  with  a  fervent  interest  to  comparative  religion,  and 
to  the  relation  of  the  other  religions  of  mankind  to  Christianity. 
While  insisting  firmly  that  Christianity  is  the  supreme,  absolute 
religion,  he  is  a  champion  of  broad  and  liberal  views  concerning 
the  origin  of  religion,  and  as  to  the  defective  systems  that  have 
sprung  up  beyond  the  pale  of  the  Christian  Revelation.  In  the 
review  of  Gladstone,  Mr.  Lincoln,  carrying  his  agreement  with 
him  on  what  is  called  "  the  Homeric  question  "  farther  than  most 
scholars  at  present  would  sanction,  dissents  from  his  author's 
opinion  that  the  Olympian  religion,  and  the  other  Gentile  religions 
with  it,  are  the  remains  of  a  primitive  divine  revelation.  He 


ON  JOHN   LARKIN   LINCOLN.  13 

advocates  what  he  pronounces  "a  more  excellent  way"  of  ac- 
counting for  the  phenomena.  He  finds  the  solution,  not  in  a 
supposed  primitive  revelation  or  tradition,  but  in  "a  primitive 
faith,"  —  a  faith  implanted  in  the  very  constitution  of  the  human 
soul,  and  so  not  only  anterior  to  all  religious  instruction  but 
essential  to  the  reception  of  it,  whether  it  come  from  a  natural 
or  a  supernatural  source.  Elsewhere,  as  we  might  expect,  he 
repudiates  the  old,  crude  way  of  thinking,  which  consigned  the 
Greek  and  Roman  religions,  without  discrimination,  to  the  realm 
of  superstition  and  falsehood.  "  We  might  as  well,"  he  exclaims, 
"go  back  to  the  notion  that  Greek  and  Latin  were  somewhere 
developed  out  of  Hebrew."  Cherishing  these  catholic  ideas,  it  is 
no  wonder  that,  with  so  many  kindred  souls,  he  is  attracted  to 
Plato,  the  philosopher  whom  he  designates  as  one  who  stands,  on 
the  broad  page  of  history,  —  even  as  he  is  depicted  in  Raphael's 
picture  of  the  School  of  Athens,  —  with  uplifted  hand,  "  pointing, 
not  Grecian  sages  alone,  but  all  thoughtful  minds,  above  the 
world  of  matter  and  sense,  to  a  world  of  spirit,  to  a  world  of 
ideas  as  divine  and  eternal  things,  and  the  true  home  of  the  soul 
as  a  spiritual  being."  Nowhere  are  the  affinities  of  Platonism 
with  the  Christian  faith,  together  with  the  regulative  supreme 
place  that  belongs  to  the  religion  of  Christ,  set  forth  in  a  more 
interesting  style  than  in  this  Essay  of  Professor  Lincoln,  the  ripe 
fruit  of  a  generously  cultivated,  sympathetic,  and  religious  mind. 

The  articles  on  Sophocles  and  the  Greek  drama  and  on  Faust, 
taken  together,  are  fine  illustrations  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  literary 
ability  and  of  the  variety  of  his  accomplishments.  The  one  takes 
us  back  into  the  atmosphere  of  Athenian  life ;  the  other  leads  us 
into  the  midst  of  the  intellectual  ferment  of  the  present  day. 
In  dealing  with  Faust,  the  masterpiece  of  modern  tragedy,  he 
presents  us  with  a  lucid  and  glowing  exposition  of  the  argument 
of  the  play,  and  with  a  penetrating  inquiry  into  its  motive  and 
underlying  ideas.  A  sentence  or  two  upon  the  opening  "Prologue 
in  Heaven"  will  indicate  the  elevated  and  spirited  tone  of  the 
entire  essay.  "  We  are  lifted,"  says  the  author,  "  in  imagination 
to  the  courts  of  heaven,  to  the  very  presence-chamber  of  the  Lord. 
In  those  heavenly  hosts  that  throng  around  in  shining  ranks,  and 
in  Mephistopheles,  who  conies  also  to  present  himself  before  the 
Lord,  we  seem  to  touch  at  their  very  springs,  in  the  invisible 
world,  the  powers  of  good  and  evil,  which  are  to  invest  with  their 
mysterious  conflict  of  agency  the  life  of  a  human  being  on  earth. 


14  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

The  voices  of  archangels  utter  forth  in  adoring,  jubilant  song  the 
high  praises  of  God  ;  the  sun  rounding  his  appointed  course,  and 
ringing  out  his  rival  accord  in  the  music  of  the  spheres;  the  pomp 
of  the  swift-revolving  earth,  its  brightness  of  day  alternating  with 
awful  night ;  the  foaming  ocean  heaving  up  its  broad  floods,  — 
these,  and  all  His  sublime  works,  past  comprehending,  are  glorious 
as  in  time's  first  day." 

Professor  Lincoln  read,  at  different  times,  before  the  Rhode 
Island  Historical  Society,  papers  on  Tacitus,  Marcus  Aurelius, 
and  the  historian  Ranke.  Among  his  papers  read  to  the  Friday 
Club  were  essays  on  Rome  and  the  Romans  in  the  time  of  Hor- 
ace, Travel  and  Travelers  among  the  Ancient  Romans,  Lucretius, 
Galileo  and  the  Inquisition,  Froude's  Life  of  Caesar,  the  Roman 
Religion  and  its  Relations  to  Philosophy,  Old  Age,  as  described 
in  Cicero's  treatise,  Plato's  Republic.  These  titles  illustrate  the 
nature  of  the  topics  to  which  his  mind  naturally  turned. 

A  man  like  Mr.  Lincoln  would  not  be  likely  to  take  a  narrow 
view  of  the  scope  of  college  education.  In  these  latter  days  there 
have  been  those  who  have  been  disposed  to  act  upon  the  theory, 
even  if  they  have  not  openly  espoused  it,  that  the  design  of  a  pub- 
lic institution  of  this  nature  is  simply  to  furnish  to  applicants  the 
different  sorts  of  knowledge  at  a  stipulated  price.  The  responsi- 
bility of  the  college  teacher,  it  is  implied,  ends  at  this  point.  A 
somewhat  larger  view  is  taken  when  it  is  admitted  that  to  stimu- 
late the  intellect,  to  spur  the  mind  to  reflect  and  to  undertake 
independent  researches,  is  embraced  in  the  function  of  an  aca- 
demic professor.  Very  different  is  the  old  conception,  still  cher- 
ished in  this  place,  that  in  the  critical  period  of  youth,  when  the 
nature  is  plastic,  the  forming  of  character  should  be  included  as 
a  distinct  object  in  college  education.  "  The  attainment  of  know- 
ledge," says  Daniel  Webster,  "  does  not  comprise  all  that  is  con- 
tained in  the  larger  term  of  education.  The  feelings  are  to  be 
disciplined,  the  passions  are  to  be  restrained,  true  and  worthy 
motives  are  to  be  inspired  ;  a  profound  religious  feeling  to  be 
instilled,  and  pure  morality  to  be  inculcated,  under  all  circum- 
stances." Long  ago  Plato  wrote  in  the  same  strain.  Besides  the 
education  that  fits  one  for  a  particular  occupation,  there  is  that 
education,  he  says,  "  which  makes  a  man  eagerly  pursue  the  idea] 
perfection  of  citizenship,  and  teaches  him  how  rightly  to  rule  and 
how  to  obey.  This  is  the  only  training  which,  upon  our  view, 
would  be  characterized  as  education ;  that  other  sort  of  training, 


ON  JOHN   LARKIN   LINCOLN.  15 

which  aims  at  the  acquisition  of  wealth  or  bodily  strength,  or 
mere  cleverness  apart  from  intelligence  and  justice,  is  mean 
and  illiberal,  and  is  not  worthy  to  be  called  education  at  all." 
No  one  who  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  was  left  in  doubt  as  to  his  convic- 
tions on  this  subject.  There  is  another  truth  relative  to  the  method 
of  education  which,  owing  to  the  growth  of  colleges  and  the 
multiplying  of  the  number  of  students,  is  in  danger  of  being  dis- 
regarded. The  ancient  teachers,  Socrates  and  the  gther  masters 
of  Greek  philosophy,  set  a  great  value  upon  the  personal  con- 
verse of  the  teacher  with  the  disciple,  and  upon  the  educating 
influence  dependent  on  this  personal  tie.  The  Great  Teacher 
of  mankind  exemplified  this  principle.  Whatever  advantages 
may  arise,  a  serious  loss  is  incurred  from  bringing  together  a  great 
concourse  of  pupils  without  a  proportionate  increase  in  the  number 
of  teachers.  The  students  are  known  as  a  body,  but  not  as  indi- 
viduals. The  inestimable  benefit  of  a  direct  interchange  of 
thought  and  feeling  with  the  instructor  is  lost.  I  am  sure  that 
the  graduates  of  Brown  with  whom  I  was  acquainted  in  my  col- 
lege days  appreciate  this  benefit  to  the  fullest  extent.  The 
classes  taught  by  Professor  Lincoln  then,  and  in  later  times,  will 
gratefully  testify  that  he  was  not  unmindful  of  the  opportunities 
for  doing  good  through  the  channel  referred  to.  His  personal 
influence  did  not  limit  itself  to  intellectual  guidance  in  friendly 
conversation.  The  student  who  stood  in  need  of  religious  coun- 
sel, especially  after  the  college  was  deprived  of  the  pastoral  coun- 
sels of  Dr.  Wayland  and  Dr.  Caswell,  felt  free  to  resort  to  him. 
For  a  considerable  time,  the  annual  receptions  of  the  College 
Christian  Association  were  held  at  his  house. 

During  Professor  Lincoln's  long  term  of  service  as  professor, 
extending  over  a  period  of  forty-seven  years,  he  visited  Europe 
three  times ;  first  in  1857,  for  the  sake  of  his  health,  when  he 
was  absent  for  six  months,  again  in  the  summer  of  1878,  and 
finally  ten  years  later,  when  he  was  absent  for  a  year.  From 
1859  to  1867  he  was  released  from  a  portion  of  his  work  on 
account  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  stipend  paid  him  by  the  col- 
lege ;  and  during  this  interval  superintended,  with  gratifying 
success,  a  school  of  young  women  in  Providence.  The  ladies 
who  were  taught  by  him  are  warm  in  their  appreciation  of  the 
manner  in  which  he  incited  them  to  study  from  the  love  of  know- 
ledge, and  of  his  readiness  to  solve  all  difficulties  clearly,  while 
he  showed  them  also  how  to  solve  them  for  themselves.  While  he 


16  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

carried  forward  the  school,  he  still  instructed  the  Senior  class  in 
college,  and  furnished  a  substitute  for  the  other  classes. 

This  chronological  statement,  and  what  has  been  said  before 
of  his  work  as  an  instructor,  are  quite  inadequate  as  a  record  of 
the  extent  of  his  labors  in  behalf  of  the  college.  For  thirty-six 
years  he  was  a  member  of  the  Library  Committee,  and  for  twen- 
ty-six years  wrote  its  annual  reports.  He  edited  the  annual  cata- 
logues, first  in  conjunction  with  Dr.  Wayland,  and  afterwards 
alone  for  about  thirty  years  (1855-1884)  ;  and  in  connection  with 
Mr.  Guild  he  prepared  the  Alumni  Catalogues,  with  one  exception, 
from  1846  to  1886.  He  loved  the  college,  and  because  he  loved 
it  he  never  ceased  to  plan  for  its  advancement.  When  tempted 
by  enticing  offers  to  go  elsewhere,  he  refused  them.  Our  older 
colleges,  let  me  add,  have  been  built  up  by  means  of  a  like  spirit 
of  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  on  the  part  of  their  professors.  They 
have  not  been  willing  to  sink  to  the  rank  of  mere  hirelings,  ready 
to  obey  the  call  of  the  highest  bidder.  They  have  considered  their 
calling  to  involve  something  more  than  to  meet  their  classes  with 
due  punctuality,  and  to  draw  their  salaries  with  a  punctuality 
even  more  strict.  They  have  given  themselves  to  the  institution 
which  they  have  served.  They  have  engaged  heart  and  soul  in 
unceasing  endeavors  to  promote  its  honor  and  welfare.  Whatever 
tended  to  strengthen  it,  they  have  rejoiced  in,  as  if  it  were  a  per- 
sonal gain ;  every  misfortune  that  befell  it,  they  have  deplored,  as 
if  it  were  a  personal  loss.  If,  in  the  changes  of  the  time,  a  new 
order  of  things  is  to  arise,  let  us  at  any  rate  do  honor  to  the  men 
who  have  been  examples  of  so  noble,  unselfish  a  spirit. 

It  would  be  strange  if,  possessing  the  admirable  qualities  to 
which  I  have  been  led  to  refer,  Professor  Lincoln  had  not  com- 
bined with  them  a  singular  charm  in  the  intercourse  of  friendship 
and  social  life,  —  a  charm  that  was  never  lost.  In  reference  to 
this  winning  side  of  his  character,  I  shall  content  myself  with  cit- 
ing the  words  of  President  Angell,  who  in  this  relation  knew  him 
so  well :  "  Only  a  short  time  before  his  decease,  he  sent  for  me 
to  come  to  his  room,  and  received  me  with  his  old  cheerfulness  and 
brightness,  though  he  was  very  weak.  That  youthful  and  com- 
panionable spirit  which  never  deserted  him  was  still  there.  How 
all  his  life  he  cheered  and  irradiated  every  company  into  which 
he  came  !  What  a  host,  what  a  guest  he  was  !  How  welcome  he 
was  at  every  dinner  table  !  No  one  in  these  last  years  who  wit- 
nessed his  exuberant  flow  of  spirits  and  looked  upon  that  face 


ON  JOHN  LARKIN   LINCOLN.  17 

could  have  guessed  that  he  was  reaching  the  term  allotted  by  the 
Psalmist  to  man." 

I  may  not  omit  a  reference  to  Professor  Lincoln's  interest  in 
the  cause  of  religion,  in  connection  with  the  communion  to  which 
he  belonged,  and  to  his  exertions  in  this  cause.  For  twenty-five 
years,  beginning  in  1855,  he  performed  the  duties  of  superintend- 
ent of  the  Sunday-school  in  the  First  Baptist  Church  in  this  city. 
For  many  years  he  was  president  of  the  ecclesiastical  society 
worshiping  in  the  First  Church.  From  1869  to  his  death  he  held 
the  office  of  deacon.  He  attended  with  great  regularity  the  meet- 
ings of  the  church,  and  one  who  knew  him  well  in  this  relation 
informs  me  that  "  if  anything  special  was  to  be  done,  —  if,  for 
example,  money  was  to  be  raised,  —  Professor  Lincoln  was  the 
man  to  do  it."  His  religious  activity  was  not  confined  within 
the  borders  of  the  city  of  his  residence.  He  acted  as  president, 
for  a  number  of  years,  of  the  Rhode  Island  Sunday-school  Union, 
and  delivered  an  address  to  that  body.  Without  aspiring  to 
prominence,  his  willingness  and  his  capacity  made  him  a  leader 
in  Christian  work  of  this  nature. 

During  his  long  connection  with  the  university,  Professor  Lin- 
coln enjoyed  the  respect  and  esteem  of  his  colleagues  in  the  Fac- 
ulty. He  was  for  many  years  the  senior  professor.  Whenever  a 
special  committee  was  appointed  to  consider  a  matter  of  impor- 
tance, he  was  pretty  sure  to  be  a  member  of  it.  There  were  times 
when  his  influence  in  the  management  of  affairs,  although  never 
obtrusive,  was  of  necessity  predominant.  At  other  times,  when  a 
degree  of  self-assertion  might  have  been  deemed  excusable,  he 
averted  discord  by  contenting  himself  with  the  quiet  expression  of 
his  opinions  and  the  quiet  performance  of  his  duties.  A  factious 
temper  was  foreign  to  his  nature.  Thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
traditions  and  precedents  of  the  institution,  he  was  frequently 
able  to  speak  the  decisive  word  on  controverted  questions  of  pol- 
icy. I  am  informed  that,  although  he  uniformly  leaned  to  the 
conservative  side,  he  was  always  ready  to  listen  and  to  yield  to 
good  reasons.  In  his  later  years  there  was  a  perceptible  increase 
of  his  appreciation  of  the  physical  sciences  as  a  means  of  intellec- 
tual development.  I  am  assured,  on  the  best  authority,  that  in  the 
deliberations  of  the  Faculty  "  he  never  became  excited  nor  lost 
his  temper  in  argument,  but  was  always  considerate  and  courteous, 
however  strongly  he  urged  his  views."  One  who  has  had  much 
experience  in  Faculty  meetings  can  easily  imagine  how  those 


18  MEMORIAL   ADDRESS 

assemblies  might  be  brightened  by  the  presence  of  one  whose 
conversational  gifts,  in  which  a  genial  humor  played  so  prominent 
a  part,  never  failed  to  give  pleasure. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  in  sympathy  with  the  undergraduate  life 
of  the  university.  No  man  is  really  fit  to  deal  with  college  boys 
who  has  not  something  of  the  boy  left  in  him.  Emerson,  referring 
to  advantages  and  titles  to  respect  that  belong  to  men  who  are  no 
longer  young,  quotes  an  observation  of  Red  Cloud,  that  "sixty 
has  in  it  forty  and  twenty."  Happy  are  those  in  whom  these 
components  that  go  to  make  up  the  full  sum  have  not  lost  their 
vitality  !  I  believe  it  is  Coleridge  who  defines  genius  as  a  union 
of  the  feelings  of  childhood  with  the  powers  of  manhood.  A  very 
inadequate  account  of  genius  ;  but  surely  he  is  to  be  pitied  in 
whom  the  feelings  of  childhood  and  youth  are  smothered  by  the 
weight  of  advancing  years.  Professor  Lincoln,  had  he  lived  in 
old  times,  when  students  were  governed  overmuch  and  trusted  too 
little,  would  never  have  become  one  of  that  class  of  obtuse  or 
morose  college  officers  who  confound  exuberant  spirits  with  moral 
depravity.  The  modern  zeal  for  athletic  sports  did  not  spring  up 
until  the  later  period  of  his  life.  He  was  far  from  looking  on 
this  new  development  with  antipathy  or  lukewarmness.  He  be- 
lieved in  the  wholesome  influence  of  these  out-of-door  contests. 
He  took  pleasure  in  watching  the  ball-games,  sharing  in  the  gau- 
dium  certaminis,  and  rejoicing  when  victory  perched  on  the  col- 
lege banner.  In  his  honor,  the  field  where  the  games  are  played 
received  the  name  of  Lincoln  Field.  His  interest  in  undergraduate 
life  was  manifested  in  other  ways.  For  example,  the  performances 
of  the  musical  societies  had  in  him  a  delighted  listener.  He  was 
not  one  whom  prolonged  study  could  metamorphose  into  a  book- 
worm. He  was  not  one  whom  the  hearing  of  recitations  shrivels 
to  the  dimensions  of  a  mere  pedagogue.  His  spirit  grew,  not  less, 
but  more  buoyant  with  the  lapse  of  time.  He  preserved  the  ardor 
of  youth  to  the  end  of  his  days. 

It  is  not  strange  that  as  he  grew  old  tokens  of  honor  and  love 
from  students  and  graduates  were  poured  in  upon  him.  On  re- 
peated occasions  his  appearance  at  annual  gatherings  of  the  alumni 
was  the  signal  for  a  well-nigh  unexampled  outburst  of  enthusiasm. 
In  connection  with  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  graduation,  a 
full-length  portrait  of  their  teacher,  by  an  artist  of  extraordinary 
merit,  was  given  by  the  graduates  to  the  college.  In  honor  of 
him,  for  the  benefit  of  the  university,  a  fund  of  .$100,000  was  pre- 


ON  JOHN  LARKIN   LINCOLN.  19 

sented  to  the  institution  by  the  alumni,  —  an  almost  unique  proof 
of  esteem  to  be  conferred  during  the  lifetime  of  a  person  thus  dis- 
tinguished. 

I  have  no  need  to  dwell  on  the  religious  character  of  Professor 
Lincoln.  He  held  fast  to  the  essential  doctrines  of  the  Christian 
system  which  have  been  the  faith  of  the  Church  in  all  ages  ;  but 
he  was  no  polemic.  He  was  not  one  of  those  iu  whom  religion 
assumes  the  appearance  of  an  excrescence  upon  character.  With 
him  religion  was  a  pervading  sentiment,  leavening  the  spirit  and 
manifesting  itself  in  a  daily  course  of  duty  and  self-sacrifice.  He 
spoke  from  the  heart  in  the  sentences  that  close  the  essay  on 
Faust :  "  The  cry  of  the  soul  for  light  has  nowhere  found  a  clearer 
utterance  in  modern  literature  than  in  the  Faust  of  Goethe.  .  .  . 
"But  only  from  the  experiences  of  those  who  have  learned  in  the 
school  of  Christ,  and  have  been  enlightened  and  renewed  by  divine 
grace,  do  we  reach,  in  its  positive  form,  the  great  truth  that  man 
was  made  for  God,  and  only  in  Him  can  find  fullness  of  blessing 
and  peace.  How  does  this  truth  shine  out  in  the  writings  of  Au- 
gustine, who,  after  having  traversed  the  whole  world,  and  consulted 
all  its  oracles,  and  found  them  dumb  to  his  anxious  question, 
'  Who  will  show  us  any  good,'  heard  at  last  a  voice  as  from  heaven, 
speaking  out  of  '  the  lively  oracles  '  to  his  stricken  and  contrite 
spirit,  '  Not  in  rioting  and  drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and 
wantonness ;  but  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,'  and  in  that 
voice  found  entire  response  to  the  cravings  of  his  soul,  and  by  its 
guidance  reached  the  crowning  experience  of  perfect  and  enduring 
peace,  in  the  knowledge  of  God  as  revealed  in  Christ  and  by 
Christ,  and  in  his  love  and  service."  Familiar  with  the  ancient 
authors,  Mr.  Lincoln  loved  to  recall  passages  in  them  that  illus- 
trate or  corroborate  Christian  truth.  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
referring  to  a  letter  which  he  kindly  wrote  to  me,  occasioned  by 
something  I  had  published  on  the  subject  of  faith  and  revelation. 
The  letter  is  under  the  date  of  March  22,  1890  ;  "  the  Lord's 
day,"  he  says,  "  on  which  my  ill  health  keeps  me  in  doors."  He 
speaks  —  I  quote  his  language  —  of  "  the  difficulty  which  Chris- 
tian people  have  sometimes  in  clinging  to  a  believing  trust  in 
God's  love,  and  in  the  Saviour's  love  as  revealed  in  the  gospel.  It 
is  so  true  that  one's  sense  of  unworthiness  often  hides  in  dimness 
or  even  in  darkness  the  precious  truth  of  the  divine  mercy  and 
love  in  Christ."  Then  he  alludes  to  the  need  of  increasing  one's 
faith  by  the  habitual  contemplation  of  Christ's  life  and  character, 


20  MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

anil  by  prayer.  I  had  made  use  of  the  maxim,  "  It  is  hard  to 
forgive  those  whom  we  have  injured."  This  brings  to  his  mind 
at  once  a  series  of  parallel  sayings  from  Latin  writers  ;  one  from 
the  Agricola  of  Tacitus,  one  from  the  Annals  by  the  same  author, 
with  an  analogous  statement  from  Seneca's  treatise  on  anger ;  to 
which  he  adds  a  reference  to  Lucretius,  where  a  superficial  mod- 
ern notion  as  to  the  origin  of  the  belief  in  a  world  of  spirits  is 
anticipated.  In  this  way  did  the  unsought  recollections  of  the 
scholar  mingle  with  devout  reflections. 

Our  assembling  to-day  testifies  to  the  loss  which  this  academic 
community  has  suffered  in  the  death  of  Professor  Lincoln.  It  is 
not  for  me  to  enter  within  the  circle  of  domestic  grief.  1  speak 
now  of  the  public  loss  that  ensues  when  such  a  man  grows  old  and 
departs  from  the  earth.  How  much  enters  into  the  making  of 
such  a  man  !  Propitious  circumstances  connected  with  birth  and 
ancestry  ;  streams  of  influence  from  so  many  different  sources,  in 
their  combined  effect ;  care  expended  by  relatives  and  teachers  ; 
years  spent  in  assiduous  efforts  to  prepare  for  usefulness ;  inter- 
course with  many  men  in  different  lands ;  the  reflex  action  of  long 
communion  with  books  ;  accumulated  results  of  observation  and 
experience,  of  culture,  of  inward  conflict  and  self-discipline  —  how 
much  is  required  to  make  such  a  man  what  he  is  !  Thoughts  like 
these  help  us  to  estimate  aright  the  loss  that  is  suffered  when  his 
activity  among  men  comes  to  an  end. 

It  is  well,  however,  at  the  same  time,  to  bear  in  mind  how  much 
goes  forth  from  such  a  man  during  the  period  allotted  to  him  by 
divine  Providence.  Who  shall  measure  the  total  effect  of  his 
presence  and  example,  of  the  instruction  that  he  has  imparted,  of 
the  impulses  that  he  has  communicated,  to  successive  generations 
of  young  men  at  times  when  mind  was  growing  and  character  was 
forming  ?  The  good  accomplished  by  a  Christian  scholar  in  the 
course  of  a  long  career  is  to  a  large  extent  intangible.  From  its 
amount,  as  well  as  from  its  nature,  it  passes  the  limit  of  possible 
calculation. 

Our  departed  friend  takes  his  place  on  the  roll  of  the  honored 
sons  and  servants  of  this  university  who  have  finished  their  work. 
The  memory  of  them  is  the  priceless  heritage  of  the  college.  The 
great  money-makers  of  the  land  may  found  their  universities. 
They  may  be  doing  well ;  even  though  it  were  sometimes  wiser  to 
build  on  good  foundations  laid  of  old  by  the  fathers.  But  there 
is  one  thing  their  millions  cannot  buy.  Age  it  is  impossible  to 


ON   JOHN  LARKIN   LINCOLN.  21 

purchase.  The  store  of  recollections  that  gather  about  an  ancient 
seat  of  learning,  money  avails  not  to  procure.  Brown  University 
antedates  the  national  government  under  which  we  live,  and  the 
war  of  revolution  that  paved  the  way  for  it.  The  mention  of  the 
name  of  the  university  calls  to  mind  a  long  array  of  noble  men 
who  have  gone  forth  from  her  walls  to  win  distinction  for  them- 
selves and  to  confer  blessings  on  the  land  and  on  the  world.  And 
to-day,  while  we  miss  from  the  ranks  of  her  teachers  a  leader 
revered  and  beloved,  we  do  it  in  the  consciousness  that  one  more 
jewel  has  been  set  in  her  crown. 


NOTES   OF   MY  LIFE. 

WRITTEN  BY  PROFESSOR  LINCOLN,  FRIDAY  EVENING,  MAY  28,  1886,  8  TO 
11,  IN  A  FEELING  OF  PRESENTIMENT. 

I  WAS  born  February  23,  1817,  in  Boston,  No.  9  Myrtle  Street. 
Of  this  house  iny  earliest  remembrance  is  of  the  death  of  my 
mother,  when  I  was  four  years  old.  In  that  back  parlor  they  took 
me  to  her  bedside,  many  people  standing  around,  and  I  remember 
that  pale,  heavenly  face  (as  if  I  saw  her  now)  as  I  looked  at  her, 
and  heard  her  feeble  voice  amid  the  hush  of  the  whole  room  of 
people.  Ah,  if  I  had  only  had  the  nurture  of  that  saintly  woman 
during  my  boyhood  and  youth  ! 

I  went  to  school  to  Mrs.  Jacobs,  on  Myrtle  Street,  —  a  worthy 
woman  and  kind,  good  teacher.  I  remember  the  room,  her  table, 
and  the  little  desks  around.  She  was  George  Sumner's  aunt,  and 
George  was  a  schoolmate  with  me.  But  I  used  to  go  home  every 
afternoon  with  a  sick-headache,  and  they  gave  me  what  they  called 
picra  ;  it  was  -n-iKpfi.  indeed.  My  father  had  my  aunt  Becky,  as  we 
called  her,  to  keep  house,  whom  I  remember  with  affection ;  and 
my  aunt  Betsey  (afterwards  Mrs.  Childs)  I  remember,  too,  who 
used  to  be  often  at  our  house,  and  who  was  very  good  to  me.  My 
dear  father  was  one  of  the  best  of  men,  always  cheerful  and  kind, 
with  a  wonderful  equableness  of  temper.  I  never  heard  him  speak 
petulantly  or  angrily ;  but  his  grave  and  troubled  look,  if  I  did 
wrong,  was  enough  to  break  me  into  penitence.  He  was  for  all 
my  childhood  and  youth  the  model  of  a  Christian  man,  and  to  my 
maturest  thought  he  is  so  now  in  memory.  Ah,  how  loving  he 
was  at  home,  and  how  I  loved  to  be  in  his  lap  in  the  evening,  and 
hear  him  talk !  Ah,  it  was  a  treasure  of  good  to  us  all  to  have 
such  a  father.  Thank  God,  above  all  else,  for  him.  His  example 
and  life  have  gone  with  me  through  all  years,  as  a  constant  guide 
and  helper  in  all  temptation  and  trouble.  We  were,  on  the  whole, 
a  happy  family,  and  our  one  sister  Sophia  was  the  pride  and  love 
of  us  all ;  and  when  she  became  a  Christian  girl,  what  a  Christian 
she  was,  though  I  always  thought  her  faultless  before.  My  bro- 
thers I  loved  very  much,  though  we  younger  ones  had  our  little 


NOTES  OF  MY  LIFE.  23 

quarrels,  some  of  which  I  keenly  remember  to  this  day  with 
shame.  William  and  Joshua  I  was  with  more  than  the  others,  — 
William  so  thoughtfully  kind  to  me,  and  Joshua  so  generous  and 
affectionate.  Henry  and  Heman  were  younger,  and  I  used  to  try 
to  help  them  in  little  ways.  Oliver  was  away  a  good  deal,  at  col- 
lege, and  elsewhere.  I  used  to  go  with  father  out  of  town  when 
he  went  to  preach  for  different  churches.  How  many  miles  I  have 
driven  him  out  of  Boston  and  back  again,  and  how  good  and 
thoughtful  he  was  in  talking  to  me  ! 

I  went  to  school  from  Mrs.  Jacobs  to  Israel  Alger,  the  man  who 
made  the  grammar,  —  Alger's  Murray ;  a  good  teacher,  intelligent 
and  kind  ;  then  to  Nathaniel  Magoun,  also  one  whom  I  remember 
with  respect.  I  remember  I  got  a  silver  medal  there  at  the  end  of 
my  school  period,  when  I  was  between  eight  and  nine  years  old. 
But  my  best  school-days  were  at  the  Latin  School,  where  I  went 
in  1826,  when  I  was  nine  years  old.  Joshua  went  with  me,  but 
he  did  n't  like  it  very  well,  and  so  he  induced  father  to  let  him  go 
to  the  High  School,  and  so  I  went  to  the  Latin  School  alone.  I 
loved  Latin  and  Greek,  even  the  grammars.  My  first  lesson  in 
Latin  I  recited  alone  to  Mr.  B.  A.  Gould,  dear,  good  man  as  he 
was,  and  so  kind  to  a  little  shaver  like  me.  He  patted  me  on  the 
head  and  said,  "A  good  lesson,  my  boy,  very  good.  Go  on  so  and 
you  will  do  as  well  as  your  brothers  "  (Oliver  and  William,  who 
had  been  there  before  me).  Mr.  F.  P.  Leverett,  too,  I  remember, 
who  taught  me  Greek,  and  in  the  last  part  of  the  course,  Latin, 
too,  —  a  classical  man  in  scholarship,  and  manner,  and  tone,  and 
style  every  way.  I  got  on  very  well  in  my  studies,  though  I  do 
not  remember  feeling  my  lessons  as  tasks,  except  writing  compo- 
sitions. These  I  wrote  slowly  and  carefully,  but  rather  prosily,  I 
think.  I  went  through  the  usual  five  years'  course  in  four  years, 
as  a  little  division  of  us  were  promoted,  and  got  through  early.  I 
was  thirteen  when  I  was  ready  for  college,  and  at  the  anniversary 
day  had  a  Latin  poem,  in  1830.  I  remember  Mr.  Leverett  said 
some  very  encouraging  words  to  me  about  the  poem,  and  pleased 
me  very  much  with  his  praise  about  the  rhythm  and  diction  of  the 
poem.  I  have  often  recalled  my  working  over  that  poem  in  my 
room  at  home.  And  yet  it  was  not  work  exactly ;  it  came  to  me 
quite  beyond  all  my  expectations.  I  had  had  good  teaching,  and 
had  the  quantities  of  vowels  and  syllables  quite  accurate,  and  words 
and  phrases  came  to  me  pretty  easily,  and  I  made  out  thirty-eight 
lines,  I  remember,  and  got  through  with  the  delivery  pretty  well. 


24  NOTES  OF  MY  LIFE. 

Then  for  a  year  I  went  to  the  High  School,  as  my  father  thought 
me  too  young  to  go  to  college.  There  I  had  Mr.  S.  P.  Miles  and 
Thomas  Sherwin.  The  former,  especially,  I  remember  as  a  very 
gentlemanly,  and  at  the  same  time  a  strict  and  earnest  man.  But 
I  had  some  faults  of  character  that  year  which,  by  God's  blessing, 
I  was  cured  of  when  I  began  seriously  to  think  of  religious  things, 
and  to  try  to  practice  what  my  dear  father  was  always  teaching 
me,  and  yet  teaching  more  by  his  life  and  example  than  by  words. 
Then  I  went  back  to  the  Latin  School,  and  stayed  a  fifth  year.  I 
remember  that  I  was  that  year  at  -  the  head  of  the  class,  and  the 
monitor  up  in  that  upper  room  in  the  schoolhouse  on  School 
Street.  Mr.  Dillaway  was  the  principal,  and  Mr.  Dixwell  sub- 
master.  I  had  the  valedictory  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and  enjoyed 
writing  my  farewell,  though  I  was  grievously  disappointed  by 
being  sick  in  bed  when  the  great  day  came  round.  They  brought 
me  up  my  Franklin  medal,  and  hung  it  up  before  me,  where  I 
seem  to  see  it  now.  How  Mr.  Dillaway  and  the  school  committee 
importuned  my  father  to  have  me  go  to  Harvard !  So  father  used 
to  tell  us,  when  he  would  come  home  to  dinner,  how  they  came  to 
the  store,  and  said  it  was  never  the  case  before  that  the  valedicto- 
rian went  anywhere  but  to  Harvard.  But  Dr.  Wayland  was  at 
Brown,  and  rising  to  fame,  and  raising  the  college ;  and  Dr.  Way- 
land  and  father  had  become  well  acquainted  in  Boston  ;  and  then 
it  was  a  Baptist  college,  and  so  to  Brown  I  went.  I  remember 
that  I  was  baptized  by  dear  Howard  Malcom,  in  Federal  Street 
Church,  on  a  Sunday,  October  7,  1832,  and  then  went  to  Provi- 
dence, and  was  examined  for  admission,  on  Monday.  At  that 
time  we  traveled  by  stage-coach,  leaving  Boston  at  five  A.  M.,  and 
arriving  at  noon.  I  was  examined  by  Professor  Elton  and  Tutor 
Gammell,  in  Professor  Elton's  room,  and  I  thought  it  was  a  very 
easy  examination.  A  Latin  School  every-day  lesson  had  much 
more  in  it.  I  roomed  the  first  year  with  my  cousin,  Henry  Wiley, 
in  No.  20,  University  Hall,  but  at  the  end  of  the  term  I  lost  my 
dear  father.  I  got  the  news  of  his  illness  too  late  to  see  him  alive 
and  have  his  parting  blessing.  Ah,  what  a  grief  that  was  to  me 
when  I  reached  the  door  of  my  father's  house,  —  that  dear  home 
which  had  been  such  a  blessing  to  me,  —  and  found  the  carriages 
just  going  to  the  church  for  his  funeral !  Ah,  that  day  of  my 
boyhood's  deep  grief  I  never  can  forget.  But  he  left  good  words 
for  me,  which  I  have  always  carried  in  memory.  "  Tell  him  to  do 
well ;  the  Church  expects  much  of  him."  When  I  got  back  to 


NOTES  OF  MY  LIFE.  25 

college,  how  good  Dr.  Caswell  was  to  me,  who  had  his  room  next 
to  mine.  I  have  alluded  to  this  in  my  discourse  upon  Dr.  Cas- 
well. About  my  college  life :  I  found  the  studies  very  easy 
through  the  first  two  years,  though  I  did  not  neglect  them.  But 
I  was  a  boy,  and  full  of  vivacity,  and  found  many  pleasant  com- 
panions and  friends,  and  in  Junior  year  did  not  study  hard  to  keep 
up  in  scholarship.  But  I  never  had  any  vicious  habits  in  college. 
I  never  drank  wine  the  whole  four  years,  and  indeed  for  many 
years  after,  and  never  went  with  vicious  men  in  college.  But  I 
did  not  give  myself  with  full  vigor  to  work,  and  I  had  nobody  like 
my  dear  father  to  say  a  word  either  of  warning  or  encouragement 
to  me,  though  I  never  really  neglected  my  lessons,  and  in  Senior 
year  studied  with  much  interest  and  with  progress.  I  might  have 
done  much  better.  But  they  were  days  of  young  joy  and  delight. 
Steph  Shepard  was  my  dear  good  friend.  How  attached  I  was  to 
him,  and  am  still ;  and  what  good  times  we  had  over  in  that  W. 
H.  Smith  house  on  Angell  Street  (next  to  Dr.  Caswell)  in  our 
Senior  year ! 

After  college,  one  year  at  Washington  in  Columbian  College  as 
teacher,  first  in  the  preparatory  school,  then  tutor  in  the  college, 
which,  though  trying,  was  useful  to  me  ;  then  two  years  at  Newton 
of  good,  wholesome  study  and  progress.  The  second  year,  with 
Dr.  Sears,  in  theology,  was  very  improving.  Dr.  Sears  was  a  very 
stimulating  teacher  and  kindled  in  me  a  zeal  for  learning  and 
scholarship  and  progress  in  everything.  Then,  in  September, 
1839,  I  went  back  to  Providence  to  be  college  tutor  for  two  years, 
in  which  my  habits  in  teaching  became  firmer.  From  there,  in 
September,  1841,  to  Europe,  where  I  studied  in  Germany  two 
years,  and  then  spent  one  year  in  travel,  studying,  however,  all  the 
while.  My  German  studies  at  Halle  with  Tholuck,  Gesenius,  Ju- 
lius Miiller,  Leo,  Erdmann,  and  Bernhardy,  and  Rodiger,  were 
great  for  me,  giving  me  broader,  larger  views  than  I  had  ever  had 
of  study  and  attainments,  and  showing  me  what  and  how  to  study. 
Then  the  winter  in  Italy,  especially  at  Rome,  was  of  immense  ser- 
vice. (In  Berlin,  Neander,  Hengstenberg,  Ranke,  Boeckh,  Zumpt, 
Schelling,  and  many  others,  were  full  of  inspiration  for  use  in 
their  several  studies.) 

Tholuck  I  not  only  respected  and  admired,  but  loved, —  a  learned 
man,  a  most  inspiring  teacher,  full  of  Geist,  but  of  Gemiith,  too, 
and  a  truly  Christian  man.  My  journeying  with  him  in  southern 


26  NOTES  OF  MY  LIFE. 

Germany,  Switzerland,  and  upper  Italy,  as  far  as  Milan  and  the 
lakes,  was  of  immense  service  to  me,  as  I  have  shown  in  my  jour- 
nal and  note-book.1 

1  The  journal  or  iiote-book  containing  the  account  of  this  journey  has  been 
lost. 


DIARY    OF    STUDENT    LIFE    AT   BROWN  UNIVER- 
SITY,  1833-1834. 

ON  January  21,  1833,  just  before  the  beginning  of  his  second  Fresh- 
man term  at  Brown,  Professor  Lincoln,  then  in  his  sixteenth  year,  began 
to  keep  a  diary.  This,  as  he  states  upon  its  first  page,  he  undertook 
with  the  hope  "  that  I  may  be  enabled  by  the  blessing  of  God  to  record 
the  feelings  which  I  may  have  from  time  to  time."  The  last  entry  is 
dated  July,  1839,  when  he1  was  a  student  in  Newton  Theological  Semi- 
nary. This  diary  throws  light  upon  the  early  development  of  his  char- 
acter, and  is  full  of  encouragement  to  any  one  who  may  be  striving  now, 
as  he  was  in  his  boyhood,  to  live  a  Christian  life  in  college.  Therefore, 
although  upon  the  inner  cover  is  written,  in  his  youthful  and  as  yet  but 
partly-formed  handwriting,  the  inscription,  "  Private  res  et  proprise,"  it 
seems  appropriate,  and  in  accord  with  what  his  own  wishes  would  be, 
to  present  some  extracts. 

This  boy,  who  on  October  8,  1832,  entered  Brown,  brought  fresh  from 
the  baptismal  font  into  his  college  life  all  the  joy  of  a  newly  converted 
and  sincerely  consecrated  heart.  But  on  the  first  page  of  his  diary  is 
this  record  of  a  great  sorrow  :  — 

"  I  cannot  help  thinking  of  the  difference  between  my  present 
situation  and  that  in  which  I  was  placed  at  the  commencement  of 
the  last  term.  Then  I  was  beginning  my  college  course  with  glad- 
ness of  heart,  blessed  with  an  inestimable  parent,  who  was  ever 
bestowing  upon  me  his  affectionate  and  wholesome  counsels ;  one 
to  whom  I  could  always  apply  for  instruction  and  advice ;  who  had 
ever  endeavored  to  impress  upon  my  mind  the  importance  of  the 
possession  of  '  fixed  religious  principles,'  of  a  love  to  God,  and  an 
interest  in  the  Redeemer.  But  now  it  is  entirely  different.  I 
come  back  to  college  mourning  the  loss  of  this  dear  parent,  and 
feeling  bitterly  my  need  of  his  paternal  advice.  Oh,  how  precious 
is  that  promise,  '  When  father  and  mother  forsake  thee,  then  the 
Lord  will  take  thee  up.'  " 

At  an  age  when  few  boys  now  have  progressed  farther  in  education 
than  the  high  school  or  preparatory  academy,  this  boy  has  entered  col- 
lege life,  and,  looking  beyond  college  life,  longs  for  "  more  zeal  for  God 
and  decision  in  his  cause  ;  "  for  growth  in  "  character,"  and  for  "holiness 


28     DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY. 

of  heart,  purity  of  motive,  and  fixedness  of  purpose  in  the  service  of 
my  Lord  and  Saviour."  He  early  records  the  prayer,  afterwards  so 
wonderfully  fulfilled,  u  If  it  never  should  be  my  happy  lot  to  preach  the 
gospel,  may  I  be  enabled  in  the  capacity  of  a  private  Christian  to  win 
souls  to  Christ  by  my  life  and  conversation." 

The  following  very  brief  entry  occurs  Saturday,  February  2,  1833 :  — 

"  Joined  the  Philerraenian  Society  connected  with  the  college." 

Through  all  his  life  he  loved  this  grand  old  debating  society.  While 
he  never  depreciated  its  more  youthful  rival,  The  United  Brothers,  the 
Philermenian  Society  had  the  warmer  place  in  his  heart.  It  was  here 
that  he  essayed  to  speak  and  to  debate  before  his  fellow-students.  The 
manuscript  he  prepared  for  one  of  these  debates  is  still  in  existence.  In 
it  he  maintains  that  "  Manufactures  are  advantageous  to  our  community," 
and  enforces  his  arguments  under  all  possible  heads  and  subdivisions. 
In  such  discussions  he  doubtless  found  healthful  interruption  to  those 
too  rigid  and  introspective  moods  of  mind  which  appear  in  his  diary,  as 
when  on  many  pages  he  laments  his  "  besetting  sin  of  levity  "  and  his 
"  light-mindedness."  Doubtless  what  he  was  led  to  distrust  as  evils  were 
almost  entirely  the  proper  social  cravings  and  happy  overflowings  of  a 
vigorous  young  nature.  There  are  in  these  portions  of  the  diary  clear 
intimations  that  his  sound  judgment  discerns  that  the  sin  to  be  avoided 
is  not  "  frivolous  conversation  with  some  classmate,  or  doing  something 
wholly  useless,"  but  neglect  of  opportunity  to  do  good  to  some  one,  or  by 
seeming  indifference  to  fail  in  duty.  We  may  feel  sure  that  "  levity  " 
and  "  light-mindedness  "  and  such  like  atrce  curce  lost  their  power  to  vex 
when  he  crossed  the  Philermenian  threshold.  Some  time  in  the  sixties, 
after  these  two  venerable  societies  had  been  continued  in  existence  for 
some  years  for  the  sole  purpose  of  the  hauling  upstairs  unlucky  Fresh- 
men at  the  annual  "  rushes,"  and  after  their  hallowed  homes  had  been 
invaded  by  the  "  Hammer  and  Tongs,"  Professor  Lincoln  gave  his  ap- 
proval to  their  disbanding.  But  it  gave  him  more  of  a  heartache  than 
people  knew,  and  he  always  treasured  his  Philermenian  badge. 

The  following  appears  in  the  diary,  Wednesday,  May  15,  1833 :  — 

"  Joined  the  Society  of  Inquiry  to-night  by  a  relation  of  my 
experience,  and  have  certainly  reason  to  bless  God  that  I  have  at 
length  been  enabled  to  come  out  and  join  this  society.  The  thoughts 
of  joining  have  troubled  me  somewhat  ever  since  I  entered  college. 
I  dreaded  to  get  up  in  the  chapel  and  relate  to  the  students  of  the 
upper  classes  the  exercises  of  my  mind." 

This  quaintly  phrased  record  is  suggestive  of  decided  changes  in  the 
religious  life  and  language  of  undergraduates.  Is  there  any  real  gain  in 
the  loss  of  such  old-fashioned  sturdiness  ? 


DIARY   OF  STUDENT  LIFE  AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY.     29 

Sunday,  May  26,  1833,  he  writes  :  — 

"  Took  a  class  in  a  Sunday-school.  'T  is  quite  an  interesting 
class  and  I  think  that  I  shall  keep  it,  and  if  I  do,  I  hope  that  I 
may  commence  in  the  true  spirit  of  a  Sunday-school  teacher, 
anxiously  desirous  to  be  useful." 

In  his  after  life  he  could  look  back  upon  the  fulfillment  of  this  prayer 
in  connection  with  his  long  service  in  the  Sunday-school  of  the  First  Bap- 
tist Church  of  Providence. 

Thursday,  June  20,  1833,  the  diary  contains  this  passage  :  — 

"  Providence  has  to-day  been  honored  with  a  visit  from  Presi- 
dent Jackson,  or  rather  with  a  call.  He  arrived  in  the  morning 
and  was  welcomed  cordially  by  the  citizens,  and  was  brought  into 
the  city  in  a  barouche  amidst  the  shouts  of  the  spectators.  In 
the  afternoon  he  came  up  to  college  attended  by  his  suite,  one  of 
whom,  Governor  Cass,  made  an  extemporaneous  address  to  the 
students,  which  was  received  with  great  eclat.  In  allusion  to  the 
President,  he  remarked  that  'his  whole  visit  has  been  but  one 
procession.'  I  suspect  that  this  is  not  far  from  the  reality,  and 
although  proper  respect  ought  by  all  means  to  be  paid  to  the  Chief 
Magistrate  of  our  Republic,  yet  I  fear  that  many  things  have 
been  done  with  this  object  in  view  which  in  the  estimation  of  an 
holy  and  righteous  God  are  highly  criminal.  I  fear  that  many 
expenses  have  been  incurred  in  order  to  render  his  visit  pleasant, 
whose  direct  tendency  is  to  inflate  the  heart  of  man  with  pride, 
and  lead  him  to  forget  that  he  is  but  man.  I  should  earnestly 
hope  that  this  might  not  be  their  effect  in  the  present  case,  but 
still  I  think  that  that  man  must  have  a  spirit  of  fervent  piety 
and  the  deepest  sense  of  his  own  nothingness  in  the  sight  of  his 
Creator,  who  can  receive  without  injury  such  distinguished  marks 
of  honor  as  have  been  paid  to  General  Jackson.  Oh,  that  it  may 
have  a  good  effect  upon  his  mind,  and  lead  him  to  see  the  empti- 
ness of  the  applause  of  men  when  compared  with  the  approbation 
of  God  and  one's  own  conscience." 

Words  like  these  from  a  boy  of  sixteen  would  sound  very  odd  in  these 
days,  yet  if  Jackson's  mind  had  been  tempered  with  somewhat  of  this 
strict  loyalty  to  God,  and  more  given  to  measuring  self  by  the  divine  pat- 
tern, who  can  say  what  might  have  been  the  gain  to  our  country. 

In  October,  1833,  he  writes  thus  :  — 

"  A  year  ago  this  month  I  made  a  public  profession  of  my 
faith  in  Christ,  and  first  sat  down  with  the  children  of  God  to 


30     DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY. 

commemorate  the  dying  love  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Then,  how  trans- 
porting were  my  feelings,  how  ardent  my  professions  of  attachment 
to  the  Saviour  and  his  cause." 

A  marginal  note  appears  upon  this  page  written  in  his  mature  and  more 
familiar  hand. 

"October  7,  1832  (Sunday),  I  was  baptized  by  my  pastor, 
Howard  Malcom,  in  the  Federal  Street  Church,  Boston,  and  the 
next  day  went  to  Providence  and  was  entered  as  a  Freshman.  — 
October  8,  1882,  — 50  years  !  " 

An  entry  January  10,  1834,  reads  as  follows  :  — 

"  Started  from  Boston  at  twelve  o'clock,  after  having  enjoyed  a 
very  pleasant  vacation,  and  arrived  at  Providence  in  safety  at  six 
p.  M.  Found  my  room  in  rather  a  cold  and  desolate  condition,  but 
soon  contrived  to  make  it  comfortable.  I  think  that  I  have  re- 
turned to  college  with  new  resolutions  concerning  my  future  reli- 
gious course.  ...  I  am  convinced  that,  with  the  assistance  of 
God,  it  is  possible  for  a  student  to  enjoy  religion  while  in  college, 
and  1  am  resolved  hereafter  to  strive  constantly  for  the  attainment 
of  this  object.  Indeed,  I  think  that  I  should  feel  unwilling  any 
longer  to  remain  in  college,  to  make  so  slow  advances  in  religion 
and  to  exert  so  feeble  a  religious  influence  as  I  did  during  the  last 
year.  .  .  .  Had  a  conversation  this  evening  with  three  of  my 
classmates  who  are  pious,  on  that  subject  which  relates  to  our  best 
interests.  Was  gratified  to  find  that  their  feelings  with  relation 
to  the  future  were  similar  to  my  own.  We  unitedly  resolved  to  be 
circumspect  in  our  ways  this  term,  and  to  strive  daily  to  live  near  to 
the  Saviour.  Oh,  may  the  resolutions  which  we  made  be  strictly 
performed !  Retired  at  ten  o'clock." 

How  strange  it  sounds  to-day  for  any  one  to  speak  of  himself  as 
"  pious."  Yet  the  first  disciples  seem  to  have  felt  no  mock  modesty  in 
calling  themselves  "saints."  Will  it  come  to  pass  as  modern  culture 
advances  that  Christians  will  feel  it  over-boastful  to  call  themselves  "  con- 
verted," and  even  perhaps  be  chary  of  calling  themselves  "  Christians  " 
at  all  ?  However  this  may  be,  the  resolutions  of  these  four  young  men 
were  kept,  and  the  diary  throughout  this  year  is  rich  in  the  records  of  a 
great  revival. 

January  14,  1834.  "Commenced  a  practice  of  meeting  with 
three  of  my  classmates  who  are  pious  (A.  N.  A.,  W.  L.  B.,  and 
S.  B.  R.),  three  times  a  week  for  religious  conversation  and 
prayer." 


DIARY   OF  STUDENT  LIFE   AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY.     31 

January  18,  1834.  "  Had  a  religious  class-meeting  in  my  room 
this  evening,  which  was  exceedingly  interesting.  Two  or  three  of 
my  irreligious  classmates  were  present.  Felt  more  anxiety  for 
their  conversion  than  I  ever  before  felt,  and  was  enabled  to  pour 
out  my  soul  in  supplications  for  this  object  with  greater  earnest- 
ness than  I  ever  before  exercised.  Oh,  may  the  Spirit  of  God 
'convince  them  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  judgment  to 
come,'  and  sweetly  force  them  into  submission  to  the  Redeemer. 
Oh,  how  little  interest  have  I  manifested  hitherto  for  them! 
May  my  conduct  and  influence  henceforth  be  entirely  different." 

January  20.  "  Had  a  conversation  with  my  friend  and  class- 
mate X to-day  about  his  eternal  interests.  Oh,  what  a 

happy  thing  it  would  be  if  he  should  become  pious !  What  an 
extensive  religious  influence  he  might  exert !  " 

Saturday,  February  1.  "  The  religious  class-meeting  was  filled 
with  interest.  Five  or  six  irreligious  members  of  the  class  were 

present,  among  whom  were  my  friends  Z and  X . 

Oh,  I  do  think  I  long  for  their  conversion,  and  I  am  determined 
to  labor  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  object." 

Wednesday,  February  19.  "  An  excellent  meeting  in  the  chapel ; 
quite  full ;  interesting  remarks  from  Dr.  Wayland ;  my  friend 

Z present.  After  meeting  went  with  him  to  his  room  and 

had  a  conversation  upon  the  great  subject  of  religion.  Rejoiced  to 
hear  him  acknowledge  that  he  had  thought  much  more  upon  the 
subject  this  term  than  he  had  ever  done  before,  and  to  hear  him 
express  his  determination  to  seek  religion  with  his  whole  heart. 
He  told  me,  too,  which  should  certainly  encourage  me  much,  that 
his  impressions  were  owing  in  a  great  measure  to  an  apparent 
increase  of  religious  feeling  in  me,  and  to  my  conversation  and 
company.  Oh,  I  shall  never  forget  my  feelings  when  he  told  me 
this.  I  cannot  describe  them." 

Thursday,  February  20.  "  Had  a  walk  to-day  with  my  friend 

Y ,  who  has  within  a  few  days  met  with  a  change.  He  is 

a  member  of  the  Senior  class  and  rooms  very  near  me.  He  told 
me,  much  to  my  joy  (although  I  would  at  the  same  time  desire  to 
be  humbled  on  account  of  it),  that  he  was  first  led  to  think  seri- 
ously of  religion  by  observing  my  religious  appearance  this  term." 

Friday,  February  21.  "  Had  a  conversation  to-day  with  my 

friend  V on  the  great  subject  of  religion  ;  found  him  very 

anxious  indeed.  How  gloriously  has  the  Holy  Spirit  already 
begun  to  work !  " 


32     DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE   AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY. 

Saturday,  February  22.  "Very  interesting  and  solemn  day, 
the  beginning  of  good  days  for  Brown  University.  A  meeting 
was  held  in  the  chapel  in  the  afternoon  for  the  special  purpose 
of  giving  an  opportunity  to  the  religious  students  to  relate  their 
exercises  of  mind,  that  it  might  be  found  out  what  was  the  general 
state  of  feeling  and  what  was  the  prospect  concerning  a  revival. 

"  In  the  evening  a  religious  class-meeting  at  my  room.     Several 

present  who  are  unconverted.     One  of  my  class  (U )  arose, 

and  declared  his  determination  to  seek  religion." 

Monday,  February  24.     "  Heard  with  great  joy  that  my  friend 

and  classmate  X ,  with  whom  I  have  so  often  conversed,  and 

for  whom  I  have  this  term  felt  much  anxiety,  last  night  came  to 
the  serious  and  solemn  determination  to  seek  religion." 

Wednesday,  February  26.     "A   very   interesting   meeting   in 

the  chapel.     One  student,  Q ,  a  member  of  the  Senior  class, 

who  was  recently  brought  into  the  fold  of  Christ,  arose  and 
addressed  the  meeting,  and  with  great  earnestness  entreated  his 
fellow-students  to  attend  to  the  subject  immediately.  My  friend 

Z this  evening   indulged   for   the  first  time  a  hope  in   the 

mercy  of  God." 

Thursday,  February  27.  "  Day  of  Prayer  for  Colleges.  Has 
been  as  happy  a  day  as  I  have  spent  in  college.  Meeting  in  the 
chapel  at  ten  o'clock,  and  ten  of  the  students  successively  arose 
and  related  the  recent  gracious  dealings  of  God  with  their  souls. 
Also  a  class-meeting  at  one  o'clock,  and  also  at  six  o'clock.  My 

friends    Z and   X were    among    those   who   spoke   in 

the  chapel.  Oh,  how  much  need  have  I  for  gratitude  that  they 
have  been  converted." 

Saturday,  March  1.  "  Rather  unwell  to-day,  very  violent  head- 
ache which  completely  unfitted  me  for  my  studies.  Attended  a 
very  full  and  interesting  class-meeting  in  the  evening.  Tutor 
Gammell  came  in  and  made  some  very  pertinent  and  profitable 
remarks.  Had  a  conversation  this  forenoon  with  my  classmate 

O .     He  seems   to  be  '  almost   a  Christian.'      He   sees   the 

way  and  knows  clearly  his  duty,  but  will  not  come  up  to  its  per- 
formance." 

Monday,  March  3.  "Am  confined  to  my  room  by  a  slight 
illness.  Awoke  yesterday  morning  with  a  very  oppressive  head- 
ache and  something  of  a  fever.  Called  in  a  doctor  at  noon,  and 
this  morning  feel  much  relieved.  During  the  day  and  especially 
just  before  the  time  of  my  evening  devotions,  had  some  distressing 


DIARY   OF  STUDENT  LIFE   AT  BROWN   UNIVERSITY.     33 

doubts  and  fears  relative  to  my  adoption  into  the  family  of  Christ. 
The  thought  that  I  had  been  deceiving  myself  and  others  was  for 
a  few  moments  indescribably  painful.  But  after  coming  to  God, 
and  telling  my  feelings,  and  earnestly  entreating  Him  to  lift  upon 
me  the  light  of  his  reconciled  countenance,  I  felt  much  relieved. 
My  fears  were  dissipated,  and  the  Saviour  appeared  precious  to 
me.  Here  let  me  erect  my  Ebenezer  and  say,  '  Hitherto  has  the 
Lord  helped  me.'  But  still  I  have  not  that  full  assurance  that 
my  heart  is  renewed,  and  that  I  am  indeed  a  child  of  God,  which 
I  desire  to  possess.  When  I  look  forward,  and  imagine  myself  in 
the  last  agonies  of  death,  I  cannot  but  indidge  in  some  anxiety 
lest  I  may  not  be  prepared  for  the  society  of  heaven." 

March  14.  "  To-day  heard  the  joyful  news  that  my  friend  and 

classmate  T was  under  conviction  for  sin.  In  the  evening 

he  sent  for  me,  and  I  found  him  humbled  in  the  dust  on  account 
of  his  sins.  Oh,  I  bless  the  Lord  for  this  fresh  token  of  his 
goodness !  I  had  long  been  laboring  and  praying  for  this." 

March  16.  "Had  a  conversation  with  & .  He  appears 

entirely  careless." 

March  19.  "  Class-meeting  at  noon  to  pray  for  the  recovery  of 
S ,  who  is  lying  upon  a  bed  of  sickness,  perhaps  of  death." 

March  27.  "  Met  this  evening  with  those  few  of  my  friends 
with  whom  I  have  been  accustomed  to  meet  for  prayer  and  mutual 
disclosure  of  religious  feelings.  Was  obliged  to  acknowledge  that 
for  myself  I  had  been  less  circumspect  and  more  inclined  to  levity 
for  two  days  past  than  for  a  long  time." 

Monday,  March  31.  "  The  meeting  in  the  chapel  this  evening 
was  very  solemn  and  interesting,  as  might  well  be  expected  from 
the  circumstance  of  its  being  the  last  of  the  term.  This  has  been 
a  happy  term  in  all  respects." 

However  strange  some  of  these  old-fashioned  religious  phrases  may 
sound  to  modern  ears,  they  are  evidently  the  expression  of  one  who,  with 
a  heart  thoroughly  in  earnest,  gave  himself  to  God  in  his  youth,  and 
having  kept  the  faith  steadfastly  through  manhood  and  old  age,  is  now 
"  enjoying  the  society  of  heaven." 


EXTRACTS  FROM  PROFESSOR  LINCOLN'S  DIARY 

WHILE  INSTRUCTOR  AT  COLUMBIAN   COLLEGE,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C., 

1836-1837. 

DURING  Professor  Lincoln's  Junior  and  Senior  years  at  Brown  his 
diary  fell  into  disuse.  Some  pages  are  missing,  as  if  he  had  become 
dissatisfied  with  what  he  had  written.  The  next  entry  in  the  diary  is 
dated  Columbian  College,  Washington,  D.  C.,  November  29,  1836,  when 
he  begins  "  once  more  to  keep  a  journal  that  I  may  keep  a  sort  of  watch 
over  my  mind  and  heart."  His  entrance  upon  his  life's  work  of  teaching 
was  anything  but  encouraging. 

"I  ascended  this  College  Hill  on  the  night  of  the  25th  of 
October,  in  accordance  with  an  engagement  made  two  or  three 
weeks  ago  to  take  charge  of  the  Preparatory  Department  connected 
with  the  Columbian  College.  Drove  immediately  to  Dr.  Chapin's, 
and  was  received  with  kindness  by  himself  and  family.  After  a 
night's  rest,  at  nine  o'clock,  was  shown  to  the  scene  of  my  pedago- 
gial  labors.  Ma  conscience  !  what  a  place  did  I  find  it !  Won- 
der, amazement,  and  a  frightful  host  of  the  '  blues '  fell  upon  me 
the  moment  my  foot  crossed  the  threshold,  and  my  eye  fell  upon 
the  place.  I  shall  never  forget  my  posture  and  look  of  survey  at 
that  queer  moment.  It  was  the  upper  story  of  a  two-story  brick 
building.  Its  exterior  might,  with  some  latitude  of  language,  be 
pronounced  decent.  But  what  can  be  said  of  the  *  inner  man '  of 
this  peculiar  locus.  No  one  would  have  mistaken  it  for  a  school- 
room. The  dimensions  of  the  room  were  about  30  x  25  feet.  The 
first  thing  that  caught  the  eye  on  opening  the  door,  and  within 
three  feet  of  it,  was  a  little,  dirty  box-stove,  placed  on  a  slight 
elevation  of  brick-work,  which  from  old  age  and  hard  wear  had 
become  inclined  to  the  ground  at  an  angle  of  about  45°.  From 
this  ran  up  a  funnel  in  real  zigzag  fashion,  and  terminated  in  a 
hole  in  the  wall,  which,  being  too  large  for  its  reception,  was 
ingeniously  and  neatly  filled  up  in  part  by  bricks,  stones,  etc. 
The  room  had  five  glass  windows  and  one  wooden  window.  This 
last  was  a  large,  square  hole  filled  up  by  nailing  up  pieces  of 
plank  on  the  outside.  How  much  of  a  window  such  an  invention 


DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN  COLLEGE.         35 

was,  any  one  might  easily  determine.  On  the  hypothesis  of  the 
building  having  been  intended  for  a  stable,  it  would  have  made 
an  excellent  place  for  the  pitching  in  of  hay,  etc. ;  and  this 
hypothesis,  I  now  remember,  is  not  imaginary,  for  such  was  in 
fact  the  original  design  of  this  classical  building.  The  furniture 
was  very  concise.  One  chair  for  the  pedagogue ;  several  long, 
huge  forms,  evincing  by  their  looks  that  they  had  long  been  a 
surface  upon  which  the  '  luckless  wights '  might  try  the  temper  of 
their  knives,  hacked  up  so  horribly,  fit  only  for  fuel.  The  walls 
in  the  infancy  of  time  had  been  whitewashed,  but  now  were  any- 
thing but  white,  —  they  were  '  many  colored,'  like  Joseph's  coat, 
and  then  a  great  smooch,  telling  plainly  that  the  room  had  been 
the  arena  of  apple-fights  and  other  schoolboy  rencontres.  On  the 
whole,  then,  this  place  had  a  touch  of  originality  about  it.  So 
much  for  the  mere  physical  objects  in  this  attic.  Here  I  found 
also  fourteen  or  fifteen  young  chaps,  awaiting  the  approach  of 
their  new  teacher.  I  looked  over  their  faces  with  considerable 
interest,  but  saw  nothing  particularly  striking  about  any  of  them. 
By  a  paper  left  me  by  the  former  teacher,  I  found  out  their 
names  and  the  '  Order  of  Exercises.'  I  went  to  work,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  day  dispatched  about  twenty  recitations  or  more, 
besides  being  bothered  to  death  by  continual  questions  in  arith- 
metic, Latin,  Greek,  etc.  After  giving  them  a  very  short  lec- 
ture I  set  the  urchins  free,  and  by  the  act  freed  myself  from 
what  seemed  to  a  novice  like  myself  a  worse  than  Egyptian 
slavery.  However,  though  most  perplexing,  it  was  a  good  mental 
and  moral  exercise.  My  patience,  judgment,  self-confidence,  and 
confidence  in  the  general  sense  of  the  word,  were  all  tried  in  this 
one  day.  To  take  the  lead  in  such  a  way,  even  in  so  small  a 
school,  really  tried  me  pretty  severely,  and  though  by  a  sort  of 
dissembling  I  might  have  appeared  to  feel  at  home,  yet  I  was 
conscious  of  feeling  very  diffident.  Shame  on  this  diffidence !  it 
must  be  overcome.  Every  moment  seemed  to  bring  in  some  new 
trial  of  judgment,  and  though  the  occasions  of  the  trials  might 
have  been  trivial,  yet  the  exercise  was  salutary.  So  much  for  the 
school.  My  condition  in  other  things  I  find  not  very  comfortable ; 
things  wear  an  uninviting  aspect  in  general.  Dr.  Chapin's  family 
are  agreeable  and  very  kind,  and  I  am  acquainted  with  one  student 
to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  efforts  to  make  my  new  conditions 
agreeable  ;  but  all  else  —  Oh,  dear !  " 

The  journal  now  indicates  that  he  found  need  of  keeping  "  a  sort  of 


36  DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN  COLLEGE. 

watch  "  not  only  over  his  heart  and  his  mind,  but  over  his  temper,  and 
records  other  ''exercises"  in  addition  to  "exercises  of  mind,"  —  of  a 
new  sort. 

"  I  have  had  squally  times  in  my  little  school.  The  little  scamps 
imagined,  I  suppose,  that  they  could  handle  me  and  behave  them- 
selves as  they  pleased.  At  any  rate,  some  have  tried  it,  hut  have 
found,  I  hope,  by  this  time  that,  though  they  have  a  little  fellow 
over  them,  they  must  sail  according  to  his  directions.  I  have 
passed  through  scenes  wholly  new  and  vexatious,  but  on  the  whole, 
1  think,  very  profitable.  It  is  strange  how  little  I  have  known 
about  matters  and  things ;  how  little  about  human  nature ;  how 
long  have  some  of  my  faculties  been  unemployed.  I  have  waked 
them  up  of  late  and  made  them  do  some  good  service.  Among 
the  few  in  my  school  I  have  found  some  of  the  hardest  characters 
I  have  ever  had  to  deal  with.  For  so  young  persons  they  combine 
more  bad  traits  than  any  perhaps  I  ever  met  with  in  my  school- 
days in  the  same  number.  Their  moral  character  is  very  bad. 
They  will  lie  and  swear  just  as  they  will  drink  water.  Their 
disposition  is  bad,  —  great  lovers  of  low  mischief  and  of  making 
trouble.  As  for  study,  it  is  a  thing  among  the  things  unknown 
to  them ;  they  have  no  conception  of  its  nature,  nor  any  desire  for 
such  knowledge.  I  soon  picked  out  two  or  three  of  them,  and 
had  my  eyes  upon  them.  In  one  forenoon  I  had  to  whip  pretty 
considerably  one  of  them,  and  break  a  ruler  over  a  second.  In 
the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  the  third  met  with  his  fate,  which 
he  had  been  long  courting.  Indeed,  I  have  been  told  since  that 
he  wanted  me  to  call  him  out,  for  he  wanted  a  chance  to  try  his 
powers  with  me.  If  it  was  so,  his  courage  evaporated  when  the 
time  came.  He  came  out,  mad  as  a  piper  and  with  his  fists 
doubled.  Not  seeing  this,  however,  I  just  took  a  pretty  whalebone 
stick  I  had  with  me  and  laid  it  over  his  back  with  considerable 
activity,  until  he  began  to  beg,  and  promised  me  that  he  would 
behave  himself.  This  mortified  him  exceedingly  and  at  the  same 
time  enraged  him.  He  did  not  dare  do  anything,  but  kept  still. 
After  school,  when  outdoors,  surrounded  by  the  school,  he  insulted 
me,  and  actually  walked  behind  me,  and  muttered  something  about 
fighting  me." 

These  incidents  led  to  the  expulsion  of  the  two  worst  boys,  and  their 
mother  then  paid  a  visit  to  the  school  to  express  her  disapprobation.  The 
result  is  thus  recorded  :  — 

"  She  then  made  a  low  and  unladylike  expression,  which  dis- 


DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN   COLLEGE.  37 

gusted  me  and  the  school.  I  couldn't  stand  this,  and,  turning 
round,  told  her  that  neither  she  nor  any  one  else  should  talk  so  in 
that  school ,«  that  she  was  no  lady,  and  had  no  business  to  disturb 
me  and  my  school.  This  brought  the  matter  to  a  crisis ;  she  mut- 
tered something  and  retreated,  and  thus  the  curtain  dropped.  I 
could  not  have  desired  a  better  termination  of  the  affair  for  my 
own  sake,  as  it  was  plain  to  the  whole  school  that  she  had  only 
disgraced  herself,  and  by  the  subsequent  looks  and  whispers  of 
the  boys,  I  saw  that  the  thing  had  come  out  just  right.  By  this 
time  my  school  became  quiet,  numerically  inferior,  but  only  so.  I 
plucked  up  courage  and  went  ahead." 

But  the  school  did  not  go  ahead ;  and  before  long  came  to  wreck  on 
financial  breakers.  In  order  to  secure  scholars,  inducements  were  held 
out  of  such  a  nature  that  "  those  who  attend  are  of  no  pecuniary  advan- 
tage." As  the  inevitable  result  of  this  "  strange  and  foolish  plan  adopted 
some  time  ago,  which  I  have  n't  the  patience  to  put  down  here,"  the 
school  came  to  a  sudden  end.  The  president  and  the  professors  now  of- 
fered him  "  their  influence  "  to  get  him  another  school,  or  an  office  in  one 
of  the  government  departments.  This  last  suggestion  had  no  attractions. 

"  I  told  him  I  should  n't  like  it  as  well  as  teaching ;  indeed  I 
should  n't  at  all ;  't  would  be  dangerous,  I  fear,  in  many  respects. 
Perhaps  I  ought  to  return  to  New  England  and  enter  Newton 
Institute.  How  near  I  came  to  entering  it  at  the  regular  time !  I 
did  not  dare,  and  yet  wanted  to.  I  was  on  the  brink  of  going 
when  the  offer  of  this  Preparatory  Department  came.  I  must  say, 
I  reluctantly  consented,  as  some  of  my  best  friends  advised  it 
strenuously.  After  all,  would  it  not  have  been  rash  to  have  gone 
to  Newton?  It  is  a  mighty  undertaking;  a  mistake  would  be 
dreadful.  Oh,  for  wisdom  and  divine  light !  Oh,  for  more  active 
and  deeper  piety,  and  love  to  God  and  men !  " 

The  way,  however,  unexpectedly  was  opened  for  him  to  remain,  and, 
as  he  says,  "  by  a  master-stroke  I  am  elevated  to  the  rank  of  tutor."  This 
proved  to  be  a  much  more  congenial  position. 

"  I  like  my  present  much  better  than  my  last  employment.  It 
is  altogether  more  pleasant  and  more  useful.  I  am  obliged  to 
revive  old  studies  and  acquire  a  more  intimate  familiarity  with 
them  than  while  in  college.  The  exercise  of  teaching  is  also  an 
excellent  discipline.  Of  course  I  must  form  a  habit  of  exact  think- 
ing and  speaking,  else  I  could  not  make  myself  intelligible  nor 
throw  light  upon  the  subject.  The  very  nature  of  my  situation 
imposes  a  degree  of  self-confidence  and  decision,  so  that  my  char- 


38  DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN  COLLEGE. 

acter  may  in  this  way  acquire  strength.  Besides,  a  thousand 
things  compel  me  to  the  formation  of  many  good  habits.  I  really 
hope,  with  the  assistance  of  God,  I  may  be  able  to  conduct  myself 
aright  and  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  parties  concerned." 

Pending  his  "  elevation  "  from  principal  to  tutor,  he  found  opportunity 
to  see  something  of  the  political  world. 

"  Have  been  to  the  Capitol  to  witness  the  opening  of  Congress. 
My  impatience  to  see  the  senate  chamber  filled  with  senators  was 
extreme.  I  had  been  into  the  chamber  two  or  three  weeks  before, 
but  though  everything  was  splendid  and  gorgeous,  yet  the  scene 
wanted  life ;  it  wanted  spirit,  that  which  makes  it  the  Senate, 
the  presence  of  the  members.  It  is  but  a  tasteless,  vapid  affair, 
to  see  the  senate  chamber  when  empty ;  as  dreary  and  desolate 
as  a  banquet  hall  after  the  joyous  revelry  has  ceased  and  the  com- 
pany departed.  But  now  I  was  to  see  the  thing  itself,  of  which 
the  former  had  been  a  dim  shadow.  What  strange  and  varied 
feelings  ran  over  me  as  I  entered  the  gallery  and  looked  down 
upon  the  senators  exchanging  their  glad  salutations  with  each 
other  after  their  separation.  I  soon  found  out  their  names,  and 
then  watched  them  with  eager  interest.  I  looked  in  vain  for 
Webster.  Calhoun  and  Preston  were  also  absent.  I  saw  Van 
Buren,  the  president-elect.  From  his  dress  and  bearing  no  one 
would  ever  suppose  him  to  be  fifty-four  years  old.  His  dress  and 
manners  in  general  are  rather  finical.  I  was  rather  surprised  at 
his  reception.  He  came  in,  and  for  a  time  '  stood  alone ; '  after- 
wards went  round  and  saluted  the  senators,  friends  and  foes,  with 
like  cordiality.  I  watched  in  particular  his  meeting  with  Judge 
White.  'T  was  amusing  to  see  these  rival  presidential  candidates 
and  antipodes  in  politics  embrace  externally^  like  bosom  friends. 
I  wonder  how  the  stern  old  judge  looked  and  felt  within,  to  see 
the  lady-president  slide  up  to  him  '  and  greet  him  with  the  phrase 
of  fashion '  with  all  the  grace  and  refinement  of  a  Brummell.  By 
the  way,  White  is  the  queerest-looking  figure  I  saw  there.  His 
form  is  not  tall,  and  very  slender,  even  to  fragility,  and  his  head 
fairly  triangular,  his  hair  gray  with  age,  and  flowing  down  his 
neck  in  ocean  profusion.  Compared  with  Van  in  appearance,  he 
would  remind  you  of  a  stern  old  Roman  in  the  days  of  Rome's 
primitive  simplicity.  'Twas  good  to  see  Henry  Clay  enter  the 
hall,  and  to  witness  the  reception  he  met  with.  The  moment  he 
entered  he  was  fairly  surrounded  by  senators.  His  tall,  erect 


DIARY   AT   COLUMBIAN   COLLEGE.  39 

figure  towered  above  them  all,  reminding  one  of  '  ^Eneas,  os  hii- 
merosque  deo  similis."1  How  instinctive  and  fervent  the  homage 
to  lofty  talents !  What  spectator  in  the  gallery  did  not  rather  envy 
Henry  Clay,  though  unsuccessful  in  the  race  for  the  presidency, 
than  Martin  Van  Buren,  even  at  that  moment  in  the  meridian 
of  political  success,  the  president-elect  of  the  United  States  ? 

"  Saw  also  the  famous  Benton,  the '  Jupiter  Tonans '  of  the  Sen- 
ate. He  has  a  huge,  mammoth  figure,  and  rolls  it  about  as  though 
he  were  '  monarch  of  all.'  He  seemed  to  be  well  received,  and  to 
exhibit  in  his  movements  more  of  the  gentleman  than  I  expected 
to  see  in  him.  I  had  been  told  he  was  always  writing  something 
or  other,  and,  sure  enough,  he  went  at  it  forthwith,  as  though  it 
was  the  middle  of  the  session,  before  the  senators  generally  began 
to  think  of  such  a  thing.  —  '  Laborious  idleness  ! ' 

"  Was  disappointed  in  not  seeing  Calhoun  and  Preston.  Rives 
of  Virginia  was  present,  who  succeeded  John  Tyler,  and  was  '  in- 
structed '  into  his  seat  to  vote  for  Benton's  Expunging  Resolution, 
while  Tyler  resigned,  from  unwillingness  to  obey  such  instructions. 
He  is  a  man  of  middling  stature,  and  has  rather  a  youthful  ap- 
pearance ;  nothing  striking  in  his  countenance ;  said  to  be  a 
man  of  fine  talents,  and  already  talked  of  as  the  leader  of  the  Van 
Buren  party  in  the  Senate,  if  he  remains,  and  also  as  a  member 
of  the  next  Cabinet,  and  even  as  the  successor  of  Van  Bureu ! 

"  Saw  Van  Buren  take  the  chair  and  call  the  House  to  order ; 
no  important  business. 

"Passed  from  the  Senate  into  the  House.  What  a  change !  'Tis 
like  passing  from  the  stillness  of  the  lake  to  the  roar  of  the  ocean. 
I  have  been  into  the  Massachusetts  House,  and  thought  that  had 
a  look  of  disorder  about  it,  but  this  is  certainly  worse.  Members 
with  their  hats  on,  talking,  walking  about,  etc.  The  speaker  and 
the  gentleman  upon  the  floor  alone  reminded  you  that  the  body 
was  in  session.  These  seemed  to  be  the  only  persons  interested. 
I  found  there  was  no  such  thing  as  distinguishing  members  in 
such  a  dense  mass.  Saw  old  John  Q.  Adams.  It  seemed  odd  to 
see  an  ex-president  jostled  about  down  there  among  the  '  vulgus."1 
The  old  man  looks  bright  and  keen  as  ever.  He  is  certainly  an 
extraordinary  man ;  probably  a  man  of  more  learning  than  any 
other  in  the  United  States,  —  certainly  in  political  learning,  for 
he  has  been  in  politics  from  his  cradle  upwards.  It  has  been  the 
element  in  which  he  has  lived  and  moved.  His  face  is  certainly 
intellectual.  There  is  a  darting,  acute  look  about  it,  which  indi- 


40  DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN  COLLEGE. 

eates  intellect.  Yet  this  does  not  seem  to  proceed  wholly  from  the 
eye ;  the  countenance  as  a  whole  is  certainly  intellectual.  Strange 
that  an  ex-president  should  become  a  member  of  the  House !  It 
is  republican  perhaps,  but  yet  there  is  an  incongruity  about  it. 
lie  is  a  man  of  such  surprising  activity  of  mind,  and  so  deeply 
interested  in  politics,  that  it  is  probably  a  great  relief  to  him  to  be 
in  his  present  place.  If  he  would  stay  at  home  and  write  a  his- 
tory of  the  times  or  something  of  that  nature,  would  he  not  be 
doing  equal  service  to  his  country  and  to  the  world? 

"  1  wanted  to  see  Wise  of  Virginia,  who  made  such  a  figure  last 
winter.  He  was  pointed  out  to  me,  but  was  so  far  off  that  I 
couldn't  distinctly  see  him.  Peyton  of  Tennessee,  his  stanch 
friend,  was  by  his  side.  Was  n't  much  pleased,  on  the  whole,  with 
the  House.  'T  is  too  noisy,  —  nothing  but  confusion.  'T  is  a  real 
relief  to  get  out  of  such  a  stormy  place." 

What  a  vivid  description  this  is  of  old-time  giants  !  And  what  matu- 
rity of  mind  does  it  show  in  this  ex-principal  of  the  Preparatory  Depart- 
ment, and  as  yet  unknowingly  the  tutor  that  is  to  be !  It  is,  therefore, 
something  of  a  surprise  to  turn  the  page  and  read  the  record,  — 

"  Thursday,  February  23,  1837.  This  day  I  am  twenty  years 
old!  What  an  appropriate  point  to  make  a  full  and  solemn 
pause,  and  to  indulge  in  Sober,  rational,  religious  reflection !  What 
a  time  to  review  the  past  and  thoroughly  to  inspect  my  mind  and 
heart,  my  whole  character !  Such  varied  and  numberless  thoughts 
and  emotions  rush  in  upon  me  that  I  know  not  where  to  bestow 
my  attention." 

At  this  mature  age  of  twenty  he  examines  his  intellectual  life,  going 
back  to  his  youthful  days  in  college,  and  passing  upon  himself  judgment 
which,  if  impartiality  consisted  of  severity,  might  be  considered  impartial 
in  the  extreme.  His  reflections  have  some  bearing  upon  the  matter  of 
elective  studies. 

"  How  has  it  been  with  my  mind  the  past  year  ?  In  this  respect 
it  has  been  to  me  an  interesting  period  of  life.  As  the  time  of 
graduating  drew  near,  I  became  sensible  of  a  gradual  change  in 
my  views  and  feelings.  I  began  to  think  of  the  past  and  of  the 
future,  to  examine  how  I  had  been  preparing  my  mind  for  some 
active  profession.  Many  of  my  studies  were  more  interesting  and 
occupied  more  of  my  time  and  thoughts.  I  began  to  see  the  folly 
of  some  of  my  former  habits  of  study,  and  to  form  others.  My 
college  life  hitherto  had  been  but  frivolous  and  vain,  —  anything 


DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN  COLLEGE.  41 

but  the  life  of  a  student.  I  did  n't  think  enough  of  the  objects 
of  study.  Things  which  I  liked  I  attended  to,  and  those  which 
I  disliked  I. neglected,  except  so  far  as  was  actually  necessary. 
What  notions  had  I  been  cherishing !  About  writing  I  had  toler- 
ably correct  ideas,  and  paid  some  attention  to  it,  but  if  I  had  done 
ten  times  as  much  't  would  have  been  better.  I  almost  wish  I  had 
entered  college  two  years  later.  I  should  not  have  been  such  a 
fool.  As  it  is  I  have  lost  about  two  thirds  of  a  college  life.  I 
attended  to  so  many  ten  thousand  things  having  nothing  to  do 
with  college,  merely  because  I  wanted  to,  that  I  neglected  studies 
of  great  importance.  When  it  was  too  late,  i.  e.,  just  at  the  wrong 
time,  I  began  to  wake  up.  The  time  came  on,  and  I  graduated. 
It  is  strange,  passing  strange,  what  new  notions  all  at  once  seem 
to  come  in  upon  me  about  myself,  about  others,  about  knowledge, 
a  profession,  life,  —  everything.  Whatever  acquisitions  I  had 
made  seemed  to  be  a  mere  cipher.  So  much  —  everything  — 
seemed  to  be  done,  and  so  little  time  to  do  it  in,  that  I  was  lost. 
My  reading  and  reflection  began  to  be  new  employments.  My 
former  purposes  were  all  trifling,  and  I  almost  despised  them. 
Specially  about  history  I  felt  ignorant,  about  the  characters  of 
other  times,  the  minds  and  habits  of  great  men.  A  thousand  his- 
tories and  objects  of  study  occurred  to  me,  and  I  wanted  to  devour 
them  at  once.  Oh,  we  cannot  well  conceive  till  we  feel  it  our- 
selves, what  a  sensation  of  freshness,  of  life,  comes  over  a  young 
mind  when  it  really  begins  to  look  forth  and  survey  its  rich  and 
widespread  inheritance.  Hitherto  it  has  lain  in  a  sort  of  dreamy, 
chrysalis  state,  conscious  of  the  surrounding  light  only  by  fitful 
gleams  ;  but  now  it  seems  to  spring  forth  at  once  into  an  en- 
larged, active  being,  and  to  range  abroad  uncontrolled,  and  with 
glad  delight  over  its  boundless  and  glorious  world.  At  such  a 
time  one  begins  to  get  sound,  elevated  views.  Many  of  his  former 
notions  and  habits  sink  to  very  nothingness.  Those  ideas  which 
were  formerly  but  dimly  and  partially  correct  now  begin  to  ex- 
pand, and  at  once  he  becomes  sensible  of  a  burning  thirst  for 
knowledge.  Most  of  all,  at  such  a  time,  does  one  feel  his  consum- 
mate ignorance.  He  is  impatient  of  acquisition,  —  to  be  put  in 
immediate  possession.  He  would  know  more,  and  more,  and  more; 
he  would  know  all.  I  have  felt  much  like  this.  I  have  much  to 
do,  and  would  be  about  it.  If  God  sees  fit  to  spare  my  life,  I 
would  endeavor  to  use  aright  whatever  faculties  He  has  given  me, 
—  to  push  them  up  to  their  highest  point.  And  yet  there  is  so 


42  DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN  COLLEGE. 

much  to  do,  and  I  have  done  so  little,  and  have  so  abused  my 
mind  thus  far,  that  I  am  almost  discouraged.  Still,  I  take  delight 
in  reading,  writing,  and  study ;  and  in  such  employments  my  life 
will  probably  be  spent.  I  hope  my  desires  are  pure,  my  motives 
right  in  the  sight  of  God.  I  know  that  in  such  things  I  do  not 
enough  consult  his  glory.  But  for  the  future  how  am  I  to  live  ? 
I  hope  and  pray,  better  in  everyway.  I  would  live  more  like  a 
sober,  rational,  responsible  being,  —  a  Christian.  In  God  alone  I 
would  trust  for  strength.  In  myself  I  have  no  confidence.  Oh, 
may  the  next  year,  if  I  live,  testify  to  some  advancement ! " 

Upon  this,  his  twentieth  birthday,  he  also  reviews  his  religious  experi- 
ences, and  writes :  — 

"  The  past  year  has  been  to  me  in  many  respects  one  of  the 
most  important  of  my  whole  life.  Changes  have  been  wrought  in 
my  condition,  and  also  seemed  to  be  working  in  my  character,  of 
an  interesting  nature.  In  the  course  of  it  I  have  passed  the 
most  important  and  pleasant  of  my  college  life,  have  graduated, 
and  since  been  engaged  in  the  business  of  instruction,  —  all  im- 
portant points  in  a  young  man's  life.  How  has  it  been  with  my 
heart  the  past  year  ?  Have  I  made  sensible,  delightful  progress  ? 
On  this  subject  I  am  certainly  obliged  to  confess  to  myself  and  to 
my  Heavenly  Parent  that  I  have  been  fearfully  remiss.  I  look 
back,  as  I  ever  have  done,  with  regret  and  shame.  It  is  true  I 
have  sometimes  sought  the  mercy-seat,  and  there  found  peace  and 
joy  in  communion  with  God.  I  have  sometimes  taken  great 
delight  in  religious  exercises.  But  then  when  I  remember  how 
foolish  and  unfaithful  I  have  been,  and  deficient  in  love  to  God 
and  active,  self-denying  piety,  I  feel  ashamed  and  sad.  ...  In 
everything  I  have  come  short  and  been  an  unprofitable  servant. 
The  great  secret  of  my  miserable  piety  in  college  is,  that  my  de- 
votional habits  were  not  sufficiently  fixed ;  my  religious  character 
was  not  firm  enough.  I  feel  sure  it  was  my  desire  to  be  a  grow- 
ing Christian,  but  I  did  not  pursue  the  object  with  those  regular, 
prayerful,  repeated  efforts  which  its  greatness  demands,  and  must 
have.  During  the  interval  between  graduating  and  coming  on 
here,  I  think  I  had  more  enjoyment  in  religion.  My  situation 
made  me  thoughtful  and  solemn.  The  question,  Am  I  to  preach  ? 
then  came  up  with  full  force.  This  question  has  engaged  my 
thoughts  at  intervals  all  through  college,  and  indeed  before  the 
period  of  entering  college.  But  it  was  always  to  me  such  a  tre- 


DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN   COLLEGE.  43 

mendous  subject  that  I  could  never  think  of  it  with  a  view  to  im- 
mediate decision.  The  time  for  decision  seemed  far  in  the  pros- 
pect and  I  delayed.  But  there  was  no  escape  after  leaving  col- 
lege, —  it  must  come  up.  I  felt  I  could  decide  it  only  by  getting 
nearer  to  God.  Earthly  aid  was  pleasant  and  in  a  degree  useful, 
but  altogether  insufficient.  A  thousand  difficulties  seemed  in  the 
way.  I  tried  to  get  near  to  God  in  prayer,  and  to  some  degree 
succeeded.  I  enjoyed  prayer  very  much  and  loved  to  throw  my- 
self before  God  and  beseech  his  wisdom  to  instruct  and  guide  me. 
I  became  quite  satisfied  it  was  my  duty  to  prepare  for  the  minis- 
try. Then  came  up  the  question,  When  ?  Though  it  seemed  pre- 
mature, yet  I  was  nearly  on  the  point  of  going  to  Newton,  when 
the  offer  of  the  Preparatory  Department  here  decided  me  to  wait 
a  year.  The  subject  has  been  with  me  ever  since.  I  never  dare 
to  acknowledge  my  positive  intention  to  go  to  Newton  next  fall, 
but  I  probably  shall.  With  all  my  weakness  and  inability  per- 
haps I  ought  to  do  so,  in  reliance  upon  God  and  in  the  firm  con- 
viction that  He  will  prepare  me  for  usefulness." 

As  he  entered  college  immediately  after  his  conversion  and  baptism, 
It  would  appear  that  his  first  impressions  as  to  the  ministry  must  have 
antedated  his  public  profession  of  religion. 

Among  Professor  Lincoln's  papers  was  found  a  brief  memorandum 
headed  "  Religious  Experience,  Winter  of  '31-2,"  when  he  was  fifteen 
years  of  age,  and  before  he  had  entered  college.  This  is  of  special  in- 
terest since  it  indicates  that  just  as  in  the  case  of  his  father,  Ensign  Lin- 
coln, his  religious  impressions,  if  not  his  conversion,  dated  from  early 
childhood,  and  that  he,  like  his  father,  in  young  boyhood  habitually 
sought  to  be  alone  with  God.  This  disjointed  memorandum  is  withftut 
date,  but  from  the  handwriting  appears  to  have  been  written  while  be  was 
a  student  in  Newton,  and  quite  possibly  at  some  hour  when  he  was  ex- 
amining his  earlier  life  in  its  relation  to  his  call  to  the  ministry.  It 
reads  as  follows  :  — 

"  Grown  remiss  in  duties,  cold,  negligent ;  had  backslidden  ; 
school,  studies,  amusements  ;  was  expected  to  make  profession ;  un- 
prepared, began  to  look  back,  examine  present  state.  As  I  ex- 
amined, began  to  doubt.  Was  at  same  time  filled  with  fears  and 
distress.  Things  went  on  for  several  days ;  prayed  more,  read 
Bible  more  and  religious  books ;  found  that  with  present  feelings 
could  not  believe  myself  a  Christian.  At  any  rate  if  I  was,  had 
no  religious  enjoyment.  Began  to  pray  earnestly  for  forgiveness  ; 
that  I  might  know  if  I  was  a  Christian ;  .that  I  might  be  con- 


44  DIARY  AT  COLUMBIAN  COLLEGE. 

verted  now,  if  never  before.  Views  of  law  of  God  ;  ray  own  sin- 
fulness  and  guilt  (dearer,  more  deep  and  distressing  than  ever 
before,  liemember  how  Bible  looked  to  me  as  I  sat  alone  one 
day  in  my  chair  brooding  over  my  condition  ;  looked  compact, 
solid,  just  so  ;  could  be  no  different.  So  I  felt  the  law  of  God 
to  be  ;  it  condemned  me  ;  it  could  n't  do  otherwise.  I  could  n't 
alter  it ;  I  must  bear  it.  My  gloom  and  distress  awful  from  day 
to  day,  week  to  week.  No  pleasure  in  anything,  home,  school, 
company,  anything.  Went  about  mourning  ;  most  of  the  time 
was  alone  in  my  room.  Praying  all  the  time ;  prayed  at  school 
(down  cellar  at  school).  Used  to  love  to  go  to  bed  to  get  to 
sleep ;  felt  a  dreadful  weight  upon  me  when  I  woke  up  ;  hated 
to  move.  Was  not  willing  to  trust  to  Christ;  to  give  up  all 
works  of  my  own,  confess  myself  nothing,  Christ  all  my  right- 
eousness. When  I  prayed,  desire  was  rather  to  be  freed  from 
agony  than  to  be  forgiven  and  made  holy.  With  all  this  con- 
nected much  confusion  of  mind ;  sometimes  when  alone  so  con- 
fused did  n't  know  what  I  was  thinking  about,  nor  what  to  ask  in 
prayer.  Seeing  picture  in  little  book  at  store  of  little  children 
in  a  posture  of  prayer,  seemed  to  show  me  at  a  glance  how  to 
come  to  God,  what  to  do.  Instantly  applied  it  to  myself ;  looked 
to  God  ;  felt  happier,"  etc. 

The  next  entry  in  the  diary  records  the  carrying  out  of  his  conviction 
of  duty. 

"Left  Washington,  October,  1837.  Received  invitation  to 
return  and  spend  another  year.1  After  some  reflection  felt  I 
myst  go  to  Newton.  Entered  Junior  class  at  Newton.  Felt  it  to 
be  what  I  had  always  anticipated,  a  very  solemn  step.  A  theo- 
logical student !  A  candidate  for  the  '  ministry  of  reconcilia- 
tion ' !  Within  a  few  years  of  being  a  pastor  of  some  branch  of 
the  church  of  Christ,  with  the  responsibility  of  leading  immortal 
souls  by  instruction,  exhortation,  and  prayer  to  the  Lamb  of  God  ! 
How  much  need  for  laborious,  prayerful,  incessant  effort !  Who 
is  sufficient  for  these  things  ?  I  know  not  how  some  persons  can 
look  forward  with  such  complacency,  I  have  thought  sometimes 
almost  carelessness,  to  this  great  work." 

1   At  the  considerably  increased  salary  of  $250  per  annum  and  board. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  PROFESSOR  LINCOLN'S  DIARY 

WHILE   A    STUDENT   AT   NEWTON   THEOLOGICAL    INSTITUTION, 

1838-1839. 

HE  begins  anew  his  diary  at  the  beginning  of  his  theological  studies 
with  thoughts  as  follows  :  — 

"NEWTON  THEOLOGICAL  INSTITUTION,  June,  1838. 
"  Have  determined  to  recommence  the  practice  of  keeping  a 
journal.  I  have  felt  ever  since  I  relinquished  it,  at  intervals,  the 
need  of  it,  both  in  respect  to  my  progress  in  study  and  in  piety. 
The  practice  induces  habits  of  watchfulness  and  self-examination, 
as  well  as  promotes  system.  I  shall  not  make  it  strictly  a  reli- 
gious diary,  as  I  should  greatly  fear  the  effects  upon  myself  of 
attempting  such  an  object.  I  fear  it  would  insidiously  generate 
pride  and  a  sort  of  self-deception.  I  will  make  it  a  repository  of 
such  things  concerning  my  progress,  not  merely  in  religion,  but  in 
all  other  matters,  which  shall  seem  to  myself  sufficiently  interest- 
ing and  important  for  preservation.  The  last  entry  in  my  journal 
had  reference  to  the  fact  of  my  leaving  Washington  in  October, 
1837,  and  entering  the  Institution  here.  I  am  now  just  com- 
mencing the  summer  term.  Have  commenced,  I  hope,  with  some 
increased  enjoyment  in  religion,  and  with  more  ardent  desires 
than  I  have  ever  before  experienced  for  making  large  attainments 
in  knowledge  and  mental  discipline.  God  in  his  providence  saw 
fit  to  afflict  me  four  weeks  before  the  close  of  the  last  term  with  a 
disease  in  my  eyes,  so  that  for  the  last  three  months  I  have  been 
unable  to  study.  I  hope  I  have  tried  to  discover  and  learn  the 
lesson  which  He  designed  to  teach  me  in  this  providence.  My 
time  was  employed,  I  hope,  in  profitable  reflection.  I  endeavored 
to  look  back  upon  the  past  to  ascertain  what  progress  I  had  made. 
In  some  respects,  at  least  with  reference  to  the  nature  and  method 
of  my  studies,  I  think  my  eyes  were  opened  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life.  By  ascertaining  the  little  I  had  already  done,  and  what  I 
needed  to  do,  and  by  trying  to  discover  and  group  together  what 
objects  seemed  on  the  whole  most  worthy  of  strenuous  effort,  my 


46       DIARY  AT  NEWTON  THEOLOGICAL  INSTITUTION. 

mind  was  led  into  a  new  train  of  thought  and  new  resolves.  Col- 
leges and  instructors  may  do  much  to  prepare  the  mind  for  action, 
but  even  the  best  cannot  do  all,  and  perhaps  the  most  important 
things.  Horace,  or  some  one  else,  said  well,  that  every  one  must 
be  his  own  artifex.  Till  the  student  himself,  by  progress  in  age, 
comes  at  length  to  gain  some  just  views  of  the  nature,  objects,  and 
vast  extent  of  study,  and  is  filled  with  an  irrepressible  ardor  for 
high  attainments,  the  most  exalted  privileges  are  lavished  upon 
him  in  vain.  Would  that  my  own  views  were  more  correct  and 
expanded,  and  my  ardor  in  study  tenfold  deeper  and  purer.  Let 
me  press  forward. 

"  My  feelings  concerning  the  ministry  are  much  the  same  as  ever. 
My  fears  concerning  my  fitness  are  often  distressing.  My  back- 
wardness in  action,  always  my  greatest  obstacle,  more  painful  to 
me  than  words  can  possibly  describe.  This,  added  to  the  appre- 
hensions of  my  friends,  —  and,  I  am  suspicious,  their  uncharitable 
opinions;  not  uncharitable,  because  not  blamable,  but  opinions 
formed  without  the  requisite  data,  —  troubles  me  often  excessively. 
I  ought  to  be  more  forward  and  active,  and  yet  I  feel  that  I 
can't,  and  therefore  feel  not  that  I  ought.  And  yet  I  am  unfit- 
ting myself  for  the  future.  What  shall  I  do  ?  Can  I  be  a  min- 
ister of  the  gospel  ?  Those  who  know  me  best  speak  confidently 
that  I  can  and  ought.1  Besides  the  above  I  need  more  piety,  much 
more  piety.  Oh,  for  more  love  to  Christ,  the  grand  spring  of  all 
piety  and  devotion  to  God.  I  have  enjoyed  religion  considerably 
since  I  have  been  here.  I  do  love  Christ,  and  his  service.  Saviour, 
'  thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee.'  And  yet  what  wretched  evidence 
of  my  love !  Can  I  love  Christ  and  have  so  little  of  his  spirit,  and 
be  so  little  engaged  in  his  service  ?  Can  He  take  any  notice  of 
such  a  fitful,  glimmering  light  ?  Oh,  Saviour,  make  me  thy  de- 
voted disciple.  Accept  of  my  affection  and  my  whole  soul,  un- 
worthy as  the  offering  is." 

1  In  1839,  when  he  was  offered  a  position  as  tutor  in  Brown  University,  one 
of  his  stanchest  friends  wrote  to  him  thus  :  "  If  you  enter  Brown  as  a  tutor 
you  will  never  be  a  minister.  I  want  you  to  be  a  clergyman.  It  is  what  you 
are  built  for,  and  what  the  Creator  intended  for  you.  You  speak  of  your 
youthful  appearance,  as  if  that  was  an  objection.  It  is  the  mind  that  makes 
the  man.  Let  people  feel  you  and  they  won't  care  whether  you  are  ten  feet 
high  or  four  feet,  whether  '  bearded  like  the  pard '  or  smooth  as  a  Sybarite.  I 
am  confident  that  if  you  do  go  there,  you  will  be  a  professor  in  a  few  years, 
but  you  will  never  be  a  minister." 


DIARY  AT  NEWTON   THEOLOGICAL  INSTITUTION.       47 

Twice  during  his  stay  in  Newton  he  was  interrupted  in  his  studies  by 
trouble  with  his  eyes.  On  June  28,  1838,  he  wrote  his  first  sermon  and 
"  enjoyed  the  exercise  very  much." 

November  26,  1838.  "  Preached  yesterday  for  the  first  time  to 
a  little  congregation  at  Needham.  Felt  better  than  I  expected  and 
was  more  at  ease  than  I  could  have  hoped.  Still  the  scenes  were 
so  strange,  and  my  sense  of  inability  such,  that  I  did  not  much 

enjoy  it." 

On  Thursday  evening,  February  7,  1839,  he  applied  to  the  church  for 
a  license  to  preach,  and  in  the  diary  he  writes  :  — 

"  Endeavored  in  view  of  that  application  to  go  over  my  views 
and  feelings,  and  reexamine  my  decision  ;  also  to  put  together  in 
some  shape  the  feelings  through  which  I  passed,  just  after  leav- 
ing college,  in  coming  to  a  decision  for  the  first  time.  For  my 
own  convenience  in  future,  will  put  them  down  in  brief. 

"  First  thing  :  I  met  as  an  obstacle  a  sense  of  unfitness,  men- 
tally, morally,  and  in  piety.  Had  felt  it  before ;  have  felt  it  to 
some  extent  ever  since. 

"  I.  In  respect  to  inclination. 

"  1.  An  entire  disinclination  to  any  other  profession.  For  med- 
icine or  law  never  had  a  particle  of  desire. 

"  2.  Felt  some  inclination  for  ministry,  even  considered  profes- 
sionally. Its  subjects,  immediate  and  collateral,  best  suited  to  my 
prevailing  tastes. 

"  3.  This  inclination  was  stronger,  when  to  the  above  was 
added  the  idea  of  being  useful.  The  gospel  contains  the  most 
glorious  of  all  truth.  Who  would  not  desire  to  make  it  his  busi- 
ness to  communicate  it  to  his  fellow-men  ? 

"  II.  In  regard  to  providential  circumstances.  These  were  not 
only  not  unfavorable,  but  were  and  always  had  been  very  pro- 
pitious ;  health,  youth,  collegiate  education,  means  of  obtaining 
theological  education,  —  how  highly  favored  ! 

"  III.  With  regard  to  more  direct  point  of  duty. 

"1.  Was  certainly  bound  as  a  Christian  to  serve  God  in  the 
best  possible  manner.  w 

"  2.  Was  it  not  altogether  probable  I  could  be  most  useful  in 
the  ministry?  It  seemed  to  me  it  was. 

"  3.  Besides,  the  destitution  of  ministers  was  proverbial  — 
churches  praying  for  laborers ;  societies  laboring  to  raise  up  young 
men,  some  kept  back,  contrary  to  their  strong  desires,  on  account 


48        DIARY  AT  NEWTON  THEOLOGICAL  INSTITUTION. 

of  pecuniary  difficulties.  Nothing  in  my  way,  could  I  refrain 
from  saying,  I  ought  to  preach  ? 

"  4.  Still  it  was  an  important  matter,  fearfully  responsible. 
God  will  not  take  anybody  for  his  ministers.  Endeavored,  I 
think  in  sincerity,  to  seek  the  direction  of  God  in  prayer.  Found 
some  satisfaction ;  enjoyed  the  exercise,  enjoyed  a  rededication  of 
myself  to  his  service.  Felt  satisfied  that  it  would  be  my  duty  to 
make  preparations  to  preach. 

"  My  feelings  since  have  been  materially  the  same,  though  I 
have  often  been  much  depressed  through  a  fear  of  inability. 
Though  I  have  often  felt  like  shrinking  back,  yet  I  could  never  do 
it  conscientiously." 

On  many  pages  of  the  diary  he  records  his  deep  feeling  of  insuffi- 
ciency for  the  ministry.  Doubtless  a  proper  conception  of  his  weakness 
is  desirable  for  any  theological  student,  yet  it  would  seem  that  it  was  ow- 
ing in  great  measure  to  convictions  of  this  nature  that  Professor  Lincoln 
did  not  complete  the  course  at  Newton. 

In  December,  1838,  he  writes  :  — 

"  Have  suffered  very  much  within  a  few  days  from  despond- 
ency and  gloom.  At  times  felt  that  I  could  scarcely  lift  my  head. 
The  general  cause,  in  addition  to  others,  was  an  old  one,  and  more 
or  less  always  operating,  viz.,  my  sense  of  disqualification  for  the 
laborious  duties  of  the  ministry.  The  prospect,  now  so  near 
at  hand,  of  going  forth  to  this  work  is  at  times  fearful  in  the 
extreme." 

At  a  later  date  he  writes  again :  — 

"  I  tremble  to  think  of  the  short  interval  now  remaining  previ- 
ous to  leaving  this  Institution.  I  am  not  yet  prepared  for  the 
ministry.  I  shrink  from  its  laborious,  responsible  duties." 

And  again :  — 

"  Have  had  many  desponding  seasons  this  term.  Have  been 
afraid  that  my  piety  was  sadly  declining.  No  deficiency  seems  so 
appalling  as  this,  when  I  contemplate  the  ministry  as  my  future 
occupation  in  life.  Have  been  troubled  also  at  times  concerning 
matters  of  doctrine.  The  difficulties  here  are  many  and  exceed- 
ingly perplexing.  Oh,  for  light  from  above,  the  Source  of  all 
light  and  truth.  When  shall  I  see  and  know ;  when  shall  I  com- 
prehend, where  now  I  can  only  bow  and  adore  ?  Feel  the  need 
more  than  ever  of  living  near  to  God,  of  holding  fast  to  the 


DIARY  AT  NEWTON   THEOLOGICAL  INSTITUTION.       49 

throne  of  mercy,  lest  I  be  swept  away  by  doubts  and  skepticism. 
Trust  in  God  is  a  grace  that  needs  continual  and  diligent  cultiva- 
tion. I  do  not  feel  enough  interested  in  the  spiritual  welfare  of 
the  world  in  general.  Am  too  selfish  in  my  feelings  and  thoughts 
and  prayers.  Practical  benevolence,  the  great  field  for  the  growth 
of  piety  as  well  as  of  habits  of  usefulness,  is  not  sufficiently  cher- 
ished. This  last  is  a  danger  to  which  students  are  very  liable 
from  the  secluded  life  they  follow." 

To  most  of  Professor  Lincoln's  friends  and  pupils  these  records  of 
early  doubts  and  difficulties  must  be  a  surprise.  His  real  vocation  was 
that  of  a  teacher,  and  after  a  most  practical  and  conscientious  test  as 
to  the  matter  of  the  ministry,  he  was  the  better  able  to  devote  his  life 
cheerfully  and  undoubtingly  to  the  cause  of  education.  He  early  had 
found  the  cure  for  uneasiness  in  doctrinal  matters  :  "  I  have  felt  some- 
times, after  some  perplexity,  a  degree  of  calm  satisfaction,  by  opening 
the  Bible  and  reading  its  plain  affirmations.  Here  is  solid  foundation ; 
no  refined  and  wire-drawn  metaphysics  to  split  words  and  syllables  and 
do  away  with  all  language."  To  the  end  of  his  life  he  studied  his  Bible, 
especially  the  New  Testament  in  the  Greek,  and  in  later  life  in  connec- 
tion with  Farrar's  writings.  His  reference  to  the  necessity  and  value  of 
"  practical  benevolence  "  in  the  development  of  a  religious  character  was 
not  a  mere  abstract  speculation.  In  all  his  after  life  that  part  of  the 
worship  of  God  which  consists  of  paying  money  to  Him  was  a  part  of 
his  religion.  After  his  death,  when  it  became  necessary  to  examine  his 
modest  financial  accounts,  it  was  found  that  the  largest  single  item  of 
expenditure  had  been  that  of  religion  and  charity. 

The  last  extract  which  will  be  presented  here  is  one  which  is  very 
touching  in  its  affectionate  remembrance  of  a  brother  who  had  died  not 
very  long  before  this  diary  was  begun,  and  in  its  looking  forward  to  the 
happy  reunion  in  the  better  world  which  now,  after  these  many  busy  and 
useful  years,  has  taken  place. 

"  February  23,  1839.  The  anniversary  of  my  birthday,  — 
twenty-two  years  old  !  A  large  moiety  of  the  '  threescore  years  and 
ten.'  Perhaps  I  have  already  spent  altogether  the  largest  portion 
of  my  life.  I  am  sure  it  is  a  solemn  season  with  me  in  all  respects. 
How  swift  the  flight  of  time  !  I  am  now  at  the  same  age  at  which 
brother  William  had  attained  when  he  died.  That  name !  Wil- 
liam !  How  many  recollections  it  awakens !  Like  the  memory 
of  departed  music,  pleading  and  mournful  to  the  soul.  His  form, 
appearance,  habits,  character,  are  all  before  me.  Oh,  if  he  had 
been  spared  to  this  time !  But  such  was  not  the  will  of  God. 


50       DIARY  AT  NEWTON  THEOLOGICAL  INSTITUTION. 

At  this  late  period  I  would  not  revive  anything  like  a  murmuring 
spirit.  I  can  only  cherish  the  fond  hope  that  his  spirit  is  in 
heaven,  in  communion  with  the  spirits  of  iny  dear  parents  and  all 
the  redeemed,  in  the  presence  of  the  exalted  Mediator.  God 
grant  that  myself  and  the  remaining  members  of  our  now  par- 
tially scattered  family  may  have  grace  given  us  to  '  endure  to  the 
end,'  to  perform  all  his  will,  that  we,  too,  at  length  '  may  receive 
the  promise,'  and  be  united  no  more  to  separate, '  a  whole  family  in 
heaven.' " 


DIAKY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY,  1841-1842. 

DURING  Professor  Lincoln's  student  days  in  Germany,  before  he  became 
Professor  of  Latin  in  Brown  University,  lie  wrote  at  intervals  between 
November  27,  1841,  and  July  3,  1842,  a  few  pages  of  the  nature  of  a 
diary.  This  brief  diary  consists  chiefly  of  memoranda  of  the  more  inter- 
esting contents  of  museums  and  pict'ure  galleries  and  also  of  personal 
matters,  such  as  writing  and  receiving  letters.  But  it  also  contains  some 
personal  reminiscences  of  the  professors  and  students  at  Halle  and  else- 
where. 

THOLUCK'S  OPINION  OF  GOETHE. 

He  did  not  like  his  works  in  general,  because  they  went  to 
destroy  all  distinction  between  right  and  wrong.  His  "Faust"  he 
wrote  in  early  life.  In  youth  he  was  the  subject  of  religious 
impressions,  and  when  he  wrote  this,  he  had  not  wholly  shaken 
them  off.  There  was  at  that  time  a  twofold  conflict  going  on 
within  him.  First,  between  simple  faith  and  science ;  he  felt  that 
he  had  not  a  scientific  ground  for  his  faith,  and  was  in  doubt 
whether  it  were  practicable  to  secure  it.  Secondly,  between  faith 
and  the  influences  drawing  him  to  sensual  pleasures.  Hence  he 
represents  Faust  carried  about  by  the  devil  in  search  of  all  the 
pleasures  of  the  world,  flesh,  etc.  Thus  the  book  really  grew  out 
of  his  own  experience.  In  general  Goethe  never  proposed  any 
distinct  object  to  himself  in  his  works.  He  wrote  from  an  internal 
necessity;  he  felt  that  he  must  write  to  relieve  the  inward  fullness 
which  oppressed  him. 

CHRISTMAS    EVE   AT   THOLUCK'S    HOME. 

December  24,  1841.  Christmas !  a  German  Christmas !  Every- 
thing is  made  of  it  here.  Nothing  but  Christmas  has  been  talked 
of  for  a  fortnight  back,  and  now  this  evening  it  has  begun  in 
right  earnest.  We  have  spent  Christmas  eve  at  Tholuck's,  about 
fifteen  students  in  all.  When  we  entered  the  hall  it  was  a  gay 
scene  indeed  before  us.  A  long  table  ran  across,  covered  with 
books,  etc.,  presents,  and  at  either  end  large  spruce-trees,  illu- 
minated and  laden  with  various  little  trinkets,  sugar  work,  etc. 


52  DIARY   OF  STUDENT  LIFE   IN   GERMANY. 

All  round  the  table  plates  with  names  upon  them,  and  the  presents 
from  Tholuek  and  his  lady.  Besides  other  things,  for  every  one 
there  were  two  great  Christmas  cakes.  Two  or  three  students 
with  Mrs.  Tholuek  and  another  lady  were  singing  at  the  piano  as 
we  entered,  and  Tholuek  himself  walking  up  and  down  the  hall. 
After  the  music  Tholuek  came  up  towards  the  table,  laughing, 
and  told  us  to  find  our  places ;  and  here,  says  he,  are  the  places 
for  the  American  gentlemen.  Hackett  and  I  marched  up  forth- 
with. And  then  a  merry  time  ensued,  every  one  examining  his 
own  and  his  neighbors'  presents.  They  were  chiefly  books,  and 
these  simple  and  useful.  On  .my  plate  I  found  a  collection  of 
church  songs.  Hackett  had  Tholuck's  address  at  the  Reformation 
festival.  The  Frau  Riithinn,  to  put  a  joke  upon  me,  had  placed 
in  my  plate  a  most  whimsical  confectionery  man  with  a  round, 
merry  face  and  a  jolly,  fat  figure,  dressed  in  large,  old-fashioned 
coat,  red  waistcoat  and  breeches,  with  a  beer-jug  under  his  arm, 
and  with  a  glass  in  his  hand,  in  the  act  of  drinking.  The  whole 
thing  was  laughable  and  occasioned  no  little  merriment.  Another 
table  in  the  hall  was  set  for  a  poor  family,  and  covered  with 
articles  of  clothing  and  food,  and  they  all  came  in,  an  old  woman 
and  several  children,  and  received  them  from  Mrs.  Tholuek.  The 
interview  was  concluded  at  about  half  past  ten  by  Tholuek,  by 
reading  the  Bible,  an  address  and  a  prayer,  —  the  best  part  of  the 
whole.  And  then  we  lugged  off  our  booty,  huge  cakes  and  all.  I 
had  some  hesitation,  but  did  as  the  rest  did,  and,  it  being  the 
custom,  nobody  noticed  it.  But  it  was  most  ridiculous  to  say 
good-evening  to  the  Frau  Rathinn  with  hands,  arms,  and  even 
pockets,  full  of  presents.  'T  was  a  rare  chance  for  fun,  and,  in 
my  turn,  I  made  the  best  of  it. 

THOLUCK'S  PERSONAL  CHARACTER  AND  INFLUENCE. 

Sunday,  January  8,  1842.  A  fine  sermon  from  Tholuek.  In 
regard  to  the  spirit  of  it,  I  could  almost  imagine  myself  listening 
to  a  sermon  in  New  England.  Subject :  The  Means  for  Private 
Christians  to  Use  in  Building  up  the  Church.  Insisted  primarily 
upon  every  one's  duty  to  cultivate  with  all  diligence  his  own 
spiritual  character  ;  then  to  exert  a  religious  influence  in  his 
own  circle,  and  thus  the  whole  church.  In  the  details  he  was 
very  practical,  earnest,  and  religious.  He  seems  to  stand  up  here 
like  a  great  light  in  the  midst  of  much  darkness,  bold,  very  bold, 
and  yet  affectionate  and  kind.  His  labors  must  be  blessed.  In 


DIARY   OF  STUDENT  LIFE   IN   GERMANY.  53 

the  afternoon  our  two  friends  from  Scotland,  with  Hackett  and 
myself,  had  our  Sunday  prayer-meeting  together,  which  was  very 
useful  to  me ;  has  done  me  much  good  and  I  feel  its  effects  to 
be  most  refreshing  and  salutary.  So  good  is  it  to  find  a  few  here 
with  whom  one  can  converse  on  common  religious  topics  of 
Christian  experience  and  unite  in  prayer  and  praise.  We  spoke 
much  of  our  relations  here  as  Christians  to  students  and  others  in 
society  with  whom  we  might  become  acquainted.  I  have  not 
been  careful  enough  thus  far  to  exhibit  the  example  of  a  Christian, 
and  to  seek  opportunities  to  introduce  the  subject  and  make  some 
religious  impressions.  I  have  suffered  myself  to  be  too  much 
absorbed  in  intellectual  matters.  A  few  evenings  ago,  at  Tholuck's, 
he  alluded  to  this  topic  in  relation  to  foreigners  who  had  been 
here,  and  made  some  remarks  which  awakened  me  to  thought  and 
feeling  with  regard  to  my  own  remissness.  He  was  surprised,  he 
said,  that  English  and  American  Christians  who  had  been  here 
had  not  more  earnestly  improved  casual  opportunities  to  exert 
a  directly  religious  influence.  It  put  me  at  once  upon  self- 
examination,  and  I  could  not  but  be  surprised  and  ashamed  that 
within  the  last  eight  months  here  I  had  so  sunk  the  Christian  in 
the  student.  In  the  evening  took  tea  with  Tholuck  in  his  study, 
as  his  lady  was  out  of  the  city.  He  was  unusually  agreeable  and 
instructive  in  conversation,  —  spoke  casually  of  his  religious  re- 
lation to  the  late  Olshausen.  He  was  the  means  of  the  conversion 
of  Olshausen  when  they  were  at  Berlin,  Tholuck  a  student  and 
Olshausen  a  privat-docent.  Olshausen  used  to  laugh  at  him  for 
his  pietism.  Tholuck  remonstrated,  told  him  he  knew  nothing 
about  the  matter,  and  urged  him  to  serious  consideration,  the 
result  of  which  was  his  conversion.  Also  of  a  visit  which  he 
made  to  De  Wette  when  he  was  not  long  ago  in  Basle.  In  regard 
to  evangelical  Christianity  said  De  Wette  was  fluctuating,  waver- 
ing (g'e&rocAewes,  «7a —  Neiri).  After  a  conversation  in  regard  to 
the  present  theological  controversies  in  Germany,  De  Wette  told 
him  he  felt  the  controversies  to  be  going  on  in  his  own  soul ;  had 
no  firm  resting  -  place ;  spoke  of  Tholuck's  recent  review  of  his 
"  Commentary  of  the  First  Three  Gospels  ;  "  said  he  felt  it  to  be 
very  severe  ;  was  chiefly  concerned  that  Tholuck  would  not  allow 
that  he  was  a  Christian ;  said  he  believed  a  new  spirit  had  come 
into  the  world  since  the  time  of  Christ ;  this,  Tholuck  told  him, 
was  very  vague ;  one  must  have  a  more  particular  faith  than  this 
to  be  a  Christian.  With  regard  to  miracles,  he  said,  I  believe  in 


54  DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 

animal  magnetism,  and  of  course  also  in  miracles.  He  has  a 
religious  wife,  who,  he  said,  was  always  urging  him  to  practical 
religion,  so  that  the  Pietism  controversy  was  also  daily  going  on 
in  his  own  house.  Tholuck  speaks  of  him  as  a  man  of  much  soul, 
and  also  one  who  has  had  true  religious  impressions ;  a  favorable 
indication  that  he  is  so  sensitive  in  regard  to  the  title  of  Christian ; 
here  he  differs  heaven-wide  from  Strauss,  who  scorns  the  name 
from  his  very  heart. 

WEGSCHEIDEK    AND   THE   DECLINE   OF   OLD   RATIONALISM. 

January  10.  Heard  Wegscheider  to-day  for  the  first  time, 
the  Coryphaeus  here  of.  Old  Rationalism.  He  reminds  me  some 
of  our  older  New  England  Unitarians,  e.  </.,  Norton,  both  in 
intellectual  character  and  way  of  using  the  Bible.  A  man  of 
dry  Verstand,  doing  away  with  all  mystery  in  religion,  and  be- 
lieving only  what  he  can  understand,  and  explaining  away  the 
richest  parts  of  the  New  Testament.  He  seems  a  quiet,  sober 
sort  of  man  ;  rather  pleasant  delivery ;  lectures  right  on,  and 
when  the  clock  strikes,  gets  up  and  walks  out.  His  day  is  gone 
by.  He  had  to-day  only  sixteen  to  hear  him,  which  is  not  far 
from  the  usual  number.  In  his  best  days  he  has  had  hundreds 
in  his  lecture-room.  But  that  Zeit-Geist  has  passed  away,  and 
with  it  his  popularity. 

AN   INTERNATIONAL   DINNER-PARTY. 

January  26,  1842.  To-day  has  come  off  a  dinner  in  Halle  on 
the  occasion  of  the  baptism  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  It  was 
started  by  an  English  gentleman  residing  here,  joined  in  by  the 
other  English  here,  and  the  "  two  Americans,"  and  some  of  the 
professors  and  citizens.  Gesenius  and  Leo  were  the  most  active. 
Tholuck  present,  Friedlander,  Erdmann,  Bernhardy,  etc.  It  went 
off  with  great  eclat.  Davidson  toasted  the  King  of  Prussia  and 
with  English  honors ;  then  the  Prussian  song ;  Gesenius  toasted 
the  Queen  of  England ;  then  "  God  Save  the  Queen  ;  "  Pernice,  the 
President  of  the  United  States ;  Leo,  the  Prince ;  and  Hackett, 
the  University ;  speeches  good,  and  well  received ;  afterward 
speeches  from  Friedlander  in  English,  "  Merry  Old  England ; " 
Gartz,  in  English  and  German,  "  Leo,  the  Old  Saxon  ;  "  Rosen- 
berger,  "  Gesenius,  Leo,  and  Davidson."  The  wine  flowed  merrily, 
"the  flow  of  soul,"  too,  and  all  were  in  excellent  humor.  Gesenius 
and  Leo  spoke  with  each  other  for  the  first  time  for  many  years. 


DIARY   OF  STUDENT  LIFE   IN   GERMANY.  55 

The  former  was  lively  enough,  going  all  round  the  table,  drinking 
to  "  Old  England ; "  he  had  drunk  quite  enough  wine.  After 
dinner,  cigars,  coffee,  etc. ;  then  singing,  German,  English,  Scotch, 
and  American.  Leo  and  some  round  him  kept  up  German ; 
Robertson  and  the  rest  of  us  the  remainder.  Von  Reich  wanted 
Yankee  Doodle ;  thereupon  I  struck  it  up  without  the  words, 
because  I  did  n't  know  them.  Funny  enough !  but  everything  was 
going  on  so  merrily  that  one  could  sing  anything.  He  afterward 
<3ame  to  me  and  got  me  to  hum  the  melody  to  him,  as  he  wished 
to  retain  it  in  his  memory.  Leo  struck  up  among  others  "  Gau- 
deamus."  He  sang  also  "  Auld  Lang  Syne,"  "  Scots  Wha  Hae," 
*'  Merry  May  the  Boat  Row,"  "  Duncan  Gray,"  and  others.  We 
got  a  crowd  around  us  and  made  it  go  off  merrily.  There  was  a 
singular  mingling  in  my  mind  of  these  professors  as  I  had  im- 
agined them  in  books,  and  as  I  found  them  here.  It  was  odd 
enough  to  me  to  sit  between  Leo  and  Tholuck  and  go  halves  with 
them.  Hackett  was  nearly  opposite  me,  between  Delbriick  and 
Bernhardy  ;  Davidson  at  one  end,  Gesenius  at  the  other,  Leo 
exactly  opposite  Hackett.  We  broke  up  about  eight  p.  M.,  six 
hours  in  all.  I  shall  not  forget  the  farewell  Gesenius  gave  us 
young  fellows  as  we  crowded  about  him  and  bade  him  good- 
night. 

A    SERENADE    TO    THOLUCK. 

January  28.  To-night  I  have  just  witnessed  a  very  interesting 
scene,  illustrative  of  University  life,  worthy  of  record,  a  serenade 
to  Tholuck  by  the  students.  It  has  been  elicited  by  the  fact  of 
his  having  been  recently  created  a  Knight  of  the  Red  Eagle.  My 
lodgings  being  next  house  to  Tholuck's,  I  have  had  a  fine  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  from  beginning  to  end.  The  students  and  others 
began  to  collect  about  eight  o'clock  in  little  knots  about  the  street, 
and  the  musicians  and  singers  collected  before  the  University 
building,  but  a  short  distance  from  the  professor's  residence.  The 
music  was  for  some  time  delayed,  as  the  professor  happened  to  be 
not  at  home,  and  was  at  Gesenius'  house  on  some  University  busi- 
ness. He  was  sent  for  by  the  Frau  Riithinn,  and  came  as  soon  as 
practicable.  By  this  time  the  street  in  front  of  the  professor's 
house,  and  some  ways  both  sides,  had  become  quite  thronged  with 
students  and  citizens.  The  windows  of  the  adjacent  houses  were 
filled  with  heads  ;  all  were  on  the  qui  vive  of  expectation.  Then 
were  brought  into  the  streets,  from  Tholuck's,  tables  and  candles 
for  the  use  of  the  musicians,  and  directly  we  heard  the  music  and 


56  DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 

procession  from  the  University.  As  soon  as  the  music  com- 
menced, the  professor,  with  his  pretty  little  wife,  appeared  from 
above  at  one  of  the  drawing-room  windows.  Their  appearance 
excited  a  general  agitation  through  the  whole  dense  crowd.  My 
heart  leaped  within  me  to  think  of  the  contrast  between  his  pres- 
ent position  and  that  which  he  occupied  when  he  first  came  to 
Halle.  Then  he  was  compelled  to  bar  his  windows  and  doors 
against  the  rude  assaults  of  a  tumultuous  mob  bent  upon  the  most 
open  and  violent  demonstrations  of  their  hatred  of  his  theologi- 
cal opinions  and  deeply  religious  character.  By  their  insults  and 
persecution  gladly  would  they  have  driven  from  their  University 
and  city  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  learned  scholars,  and  one  of 
the  kindest  and  humblest  men,  that  Germany  has  ever  known. 
But  time  had  passed  away  ;  he  had  quietly  but  earnestly  gone  on  in 
his  vocation ;  he  had  lived  down  opposition,  had  won  his  way  into 
general  esteem  and  love  ;  and  there  he  stood  quietly  at  his  own 
open  window,  looking  down  upon  hundreds  of  German  students 
assembled  to  do  him  public  honor.  After  one  of  the  musical  pieces, 
suddenly  the  name  of  the  professor,  prefixed  by  his  titles  of  honor, 
came  forth  from  a  stentorian  voice  amid  the  crowd,  and  instantly 
uprose  from  the  whole  multitude,  once,  twice,  and  yet  again,  louder 
than  ever,  the  enthusiastic  shout,  Long  live  Tholuck  I  The  effect 
was  sublime.  It  was  a  worthy  tribute  to  genius  and  piety.  Af- 
ter more  music  the  professor  leaned  forth  from  the  window,  and 
amid  the  deepest  silence  addressed  the  students.  He  told  them 
the  world  abounded  in  crowns  and  badges  of  honor,  but  the  only 
earthly  crown  to  which  he  aspired  was  the  love  of  his  students. 
He  reminded  them  of  the  controversial  character  of  the  times, 
Halle,  above  all  others,  the  scene  of  controversy.  To-night  he  had 
a  proof  that,  notwithstanding,  mutual  esteem  could  be  felt  and 
expressed  ;  a  very  happy,  religious  conclusion  of  his  address,  short, 
good,  every  way  apt  and  to  the  point. 

A   VISIT   TO    LEIPSIC   AND   ITS   PROFESSORS. 

February  7.  Have  spent  three  days  in  Leipsic ;  hospitaling  in 
the  University.  Heard  Tuch  in  Theological  Philology  ;  formerly 
in  Halle  ;  the  present  his  first  semester  in  Leipsic.  Himself  and 
Gesenius  personal  enemies  ("no  mantel  from  such  Tuch,"  —  yes, 
there  will;  such  as  "war  menial  Ges(eh)en  ").  About  twenty- 
five  hearers,  on  Genesis.  Distinct,  pleasant  enunciation,  manner 
lively,  interesting.  In  outward  appearance  quite  spruce,  a  leetle  fin- 


DIARY   OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY.  57 

ical,  rings  on  his  fingers  not  a  few.  Haupt,  on  Old  German.  Mid- 
dling size,  stout-built  fellow,  face  round  and  large,  dark  complexion, 
and  long,  black  hair.  Most  comfortably  easy,  at  home  in  posture 
and  whole  manner  of  lecturing.  Only  about  a  dozen  present. 
Then  Westermann,  on  Plutarch.  One  of  the  best  in  classics  there, 
but  lecturing  to  half  a  dozen.  Whole  appearance  that  of  a  scholar, 
manner  wanting  in  animation.  Wachsmuth  on  Roman  History. 
Was  delighted  with  him  ;  seemed  to  be  over  forty ;  in  dress  and  out- 
ward appearance  quite  simple,  rather  rustic ;  seemed  full  of  good 
humor,  and  enthusiastically  interested  in  his  subject.  Extempore 
and  very  animated.  Winer,  —  the  learned  Winer !  Not  pleased 
either  with  his  outward  appearance  or  manner  of  lecturing ;  quite 
indifferent  in  both.  No  one  would  be  at  all  impressed  by  them. 
Was  lecturing  on  Protestant  Theological  Literature.  Voice  low 
and  indistinct,  read  every  word  and  very  fast,  except  a  small  part 
which  was  dictated.  His  dress  a  little  peculiar  by  a  dress-coat 
buttoned  up  tight  to  the  neck.  About  a  hundred  hearers,  utmost 
attention.  Most  of  the  students  either  medical  or  law.  Disgusted 
with  their  general  appearance  and  manners ;  rude,  ill-dressed,  and 
boisterous;  came  in  eating  apples,  cake,  etc.,  and  smoking  cigars, 
—  one  fellow  smoked  all  lecture  time. 

LITERATURE,  SUPPER,  AND    GESEGNETE   MAHLZEIT. 

February  17.  Have  been  to-night  to  a  Gesellschqft  at  Tho- 
luck's,  —  ladies  and  gentlemen.  Professors  Witte,  Blanc,  Bern- 
hardy,  Ulrici,  Pastor  Dryander,  etc.  The  first  hour  was  occupied 
in  a  familiar  lecture  from  Witte,  on  Dante,  to  which  we  all  lis- 
tened as  in  a  lecture-room,  the  ladies,  meanwhile,  sitting  round  the 
room  knitting  stockings.  After  this  followed  a  supper,  which 
was  the  main  part,  which  occupied  all  the  rest  of  the  time.  The 
Frau  Rathinn  put  me  on  her  right,  and  a  lady  on  my  other  side  to 
whom  I  had  n't  been  introduced.  The  custom  always  here  is  to 
put  each  guest's  name  on  his  plate,  and  every  one  is  to  find  his 
place  for  himself,  of  which  trouble  I  was  relieved  by  her  Lady- 
ship. I  amused  myself  by  talking  English  partly  with  Mrs. 
Tholuck,  and  partly  Deutsch  with  my  other  neighbor,  but  had  to 
keep  my  wits  about  me  amidst  such  a  hubbub  of  sounds.  The 
supper  consisted  of  courses  of  fish  and  flesh,  then  dessert  of 
cake  and  confectionery,  lastly  bread,  cheese,  etc.,  wines,  red 
and  white.  The  carving,  I  noticed,  was  not  done  by  the  master 
of  the  house,  but  entirely  by  the  guests.  On  Professor  Witte,  at 


68  DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 

the  left  of  Frau  Riithiiin,  devolved  the  duty  of  carving  a  huge 
turkey,  which,  after  divers  cuttings  and  slashings,  he  effected.  The 
legs  he  passed  to  Frau  Rathiun  to  carve,  of  which  I  tried  to 
relieve  her,  though,  from  being  awfully  pressed  for  room  between 
the  two  ladies,  't  was  a  difficult  enterprise.  Meats,  etc.,  were  all 
passed  from  one  to  another,  as  I  notice  at  dinners.  The  company 
was  very  lively,  even  noisy,  at  table,  —  as  much  as  I  could  do  to 
know  what  I  was  about.  The  whole  broke  up  at  about  half  past 
ten.  There  was  much  more  formality  in  manners  than  with  us ; 
bowing  intolerable,  so  many  bows  and  so  low.  As  we  rose  from 
supper  I  noticed  the  whole  room  was  suddenly  in  a  bowing  attitude, 
and  especially  all  making  up  their  way  towards  the  lady  of  the 
house  for  that  purpose.  I  took  it  for  granted  it  was  the  parting 
salutation,  but  found  it  had  mere  reference  to  the  supper.  One  of 
the  professors  came  to  me,  and  exclaimed,  bowing  low,  Gesegnete 
Mahheit,  —  blessed  supper  !  I  asked  for  explanation,  and  found 
this  was  the  meaning  of  all  the  uproar  ;  what  nonsense  !  In  en- 
tering the  room  and  leaving  there  was  a  vast  deal  of  bowing. 

A    QUIET    DINNER   AT    PROFESSOR    LEO'S. 

March  18.  Dined  to-day  with  Leo.  Two  Wittenberg  young 
doctors,  Voigt  of  the  Paedagogium,  Hackett,  and  myself.  Leo 
was  very  lively  and  entertaining.  He  seems  much  interested  in 
America  and  all  its  affairs,  and  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
geography,  present  condition,  etc.,  of  the  States,  especially  the 
western  and  the  remoter  territories.  He  showed  me  maps,  pic- 
tures, etc.,  illustrating  the  United  States.  Leo's  wife  was  unusu- 
ally agreeable  and  full  of  animation.  I  had  a  long  talk  with  her, 
and  she  seemed  very  much  afraid  Leo  would  take  it  into  his  head 
to  go  to  America.  She  would  like  to  go  herself  for  the  journey 
and  see  the  country,  but  not  to  remain.  She  spoke  of  Prentiss 
and  Smith,  whom  she  knew.  Leo  also  remembered  Sears.  Leo 
spoke  very  favorably  of  Alexander's  Transcendentalism. 

A    READING    CIRCLE. 

March  21.  To-night  at  a  reading  circle  at  Von  Tippelskirch's, 
a  pastor  in  the  vicinity  of  Halle.  Tholuck,  Miiller,  with  their 
ladies,  and  others ;  conversation,  reading,  Southey's  "  Wesley " 
translated,  supper,  etc.  Miiller,  for  a  man  of  his  talents  and  posi- 
tion, extremely  retiring  and  reserved.  He  read  "  Wesley."  Tho- 
luck not  so  lively  as  usual.  Tippelskirch,  a  man  of  good  talents 


DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN   GERMANY.  59 

and  education,  and  warm,  genuine  piety.  A  parish  of  about  2,000. 
He  says  they  are  an  irreligious,  immoral  people.  His  predecessor 
was  a  man  of  bad  character.  Tippelskirch's  wife  is  a  very  good 
and  cultivated  woman,  and  of  noble  family,  —  a  countess,  _  very 
quiet  and  reserved.  He  was  in  Italy  five  years,  chaplain  to  the 
Prussian  embassy.  He  knew  Chace  in  Home,  and  spoke  of  his 
baptizing  an  English  gentleman  there.  These  circles  are  very 
common  here. 

VACATION   TOUR   ON   FOOT   THROUGH   SAXON   SWITZERLAND. 

25. 


May  24,  1842.  Just  returned  from  a  tour  with  a  party  of  stu- 
dents to  Dresden  and  the  Saxon  Switzerland,  —  in  student's  style, 
on  foot.  The  chief  articles  of  equipment  were  a  knapsack,  large 
enough  for  all  that  is  absolutely  necessary,  a  loose  linen  blouse,  or 
smock  frock,  —  a  common  article  of  dress  on  the  Continent,  —  a 
cane,  and  a  pair  of  stout,  easy  shoes.  But  a  no  less  indispensable 
arrangement  is  a  pipe,  with  an  accompanying  stock  of  tobacco, 
which  many  an  American  student  would  regard  as  a  luxus,  an 
application,  however,  of  a  favorite  expression  in  a  German  stu- 
dent's vocabulary,  which  he  would  pronounce  a  gross  perversion 
of  language.  With  a  party  as  large  as  ours,  too,  a  student's  song- 
book  is  never  left  behind,  and  is  a  constant  source  of  delight. 
The  journey  to  Dresden  we  made  by  railroad,  the  distance  being 
too  great  and  the  road  too  uninteresting  for  walking.  We  reached 
Dresden  in  the  evening,  and  paraded  up  through  the  Neu  Stadt, 
over  the  magnificent  bridge  by  the  Catholic  church  palace,  through 
Alt  Stadt  to  the  Kleine  Rauch-Gasse,  the  rendezvous  here  for 
students,  especially  from  Halle,  and  a  very  good  hotel.  Next  day 
I  went  to  the  Picture  Gallery,  and  spent  there  the  whole  morn- 
ing, till  it  closed  at  one.  The  pieces  there  of  Raphael,  Correggio, 
Titian,  and  Dolce  are  exquisite,  the  Madonna  of  Raphael  a  won- 
der in  art,  —  that  heavenly  face  I  can  never  forget.  In  the  even- 
ing I  went  to  the  Opera,  a  magnificent  house,  inside  and  out,  the 
decorations  very  splendid.  The  piece  was  "  Robert  den  Teufel  ;  " 
the  singing  of  Robert,  Bertram,  Isabella,  and  Alice  very  fine  ; 
Isabella  exquisite  ;  my  first  opera  ;  enjoyed  it  most  exceedingly  ; 
but  the  dancing!  The  opera  strikes  me  as  a  mixture.  The 
acting  must  always  seem  unnatural  in  connection  with  music  and 
song.  This  particular  piece  did  not  please  me,  the  idea  a  most 
general  one,  the  conflict  between  good  and  evil  in  man,  and  indif- 


60  DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 

ferently  carried  out.  Next  morning  I  went  to  church,  first  to  hear 
A iiimoii.  the  great  Rationalist,  the  house  full  and  sermon  full  of 
stale  moral  maxims.  Thence  I  went  to  the  royal  Catholic  church 
and  heard  high  mass,  —  such  mummery  I  The  church  is  con- 
nected behind  by  a  little  covered  gallery  with  the  palace,  through 
which  the  king  and  royal  family,  all  of  them  Catholic,  though  the 
country  is  Lutheran,  enter  the  church.  I  saw  them  at  the  bow- 
windows  above,  at  one  side  of  the  altar,  their  places  entirely  sepa- 
rated from  the  rest  of  the  audience.  In  the  afternoon  most  of  our 
party  started  for  the  tour,  myself  and  a  fellow-student  stayed  be- 
hind, intending  to  join  them  next  day  at  Pillnitz.  Next  morning 
at  six  we  went  by  steam,  a  pleasant  sail  of  an  hour,  to  Pillnitz,  the 
residence  of  the  king  in  summer.  We  mounted,  on  foot,  the  steep 
ascent  behind  the  palace,  saw  the  ruins  of  the  old  castle,  and 
gained  the  Porsberg  summit ;  thence  down  through  the  Liebetha- 
ler  Grund,  a  very  beautiful  two  hours'  walk  to  Lohmen;  drank 
milk  at  a  mill  on  the  little  stream,  and  between  high,  perpendicu- 
lar rocks  clambered  up  the  ascent  by  steps  in  the  rock  through 
Lohmen,  and  after  a  mile's  walk  came  to  the  Uttewalder  Grund. 
On  the  way  we  joined  a  pleasant  party  of  four  fellows  with  a 
guide,  two  young  Prussian  officers  from  Konigsberg,  a  Russian, 
and  a  Pole.  They  were  very  much  interested  about  England  and 
America,  and  we  had  some  pleasant  conversation  with  them. 
Then  came  an  hour's  walk  through  the  Grund,  wilder,  more  ro- 
mantic than  the  former,  the  passage  often  very  narrow,  between 
high  rocks,  in  one  place  only  a  few  feet  apart,  an  awful  place, 
called  Hell,  dark,  low,  roofed  over  by  rocks,  some  of  which  have 
fallen  down  and  filled  up  the  passage,  then  another  cave,  called 
Devil's  Kitchen.  We  came  at  length  to  the  Bastei,  the  first  place 
of  importance  in  the  route,  a  huge  mass,  close  by  the  river  bank, 
800  feet  high.  A  good  hotel  on  the  summit  and  plenty  of  people 
we  found  here ;  music,  drinking  beer,  all  sorts  of  things  going  on 
here,  gentlemen,  ladies,  children,  etc.  Two  or  three  parties  of  stu- 
dents, and  the  singing  went  merrily.  The  view  from  the  Bastei 
was  fine :  the  river  below,  then  a  cultivated  country  stretching  away 
and  bounded  by  mountains,  the  Lilienstein  and  Konigstein  the 
chief,  then  behind  the  Bastei  very  wild  scenes,  high,  single  rocks 
shooting  up  several  hundred  feet  and  separated  by  deep  chasms. 
We  made  our  way  down  by  steps  in  the  mountain  to  a  little  place 
called  Rathen.  And  here  we  had  glorious  scenes,  lots  of  students, 
the  party  with  whom  we  came,  and  the  house  already  full ;  such 


DIARY   OF   STUDENT  LIFE  IN   GERMANY.  61 

running  and  roaring,  such  screaming  for  soup  and  food  of  all  sorts 
in  the  dining-hall,  such  snatching  and  claiming  property  when  a 
dish  came  in,  and  after  all  such  arrangements  for  sleeping !  I 
xlept  with  my  friend  and  our  party  of  four  in  one  room,  three  of 
them  on  beds,  the  fourth  on  a  sofa,  and  we  on  a  pile  of  straw  on 
the  floor,  with  one  sheet,  a  narrow  covering,  and  our  knapsacks 
for  pillows.  A  memorable  night  that !  About  twenty  students 
slept  in  the  cockloft  on  straw,  with  a  plentiful  scarcity  of  pillows 
and  beds  among  them.  We  heard  them  singing  and  roaring  long 
after  we  got  into  our  nest.  Morning  came,  and  the  students  were 
off  before  us.  We  parted  with  our  friends  and  then  went  on  our 
way  through  a  pretty  valley  called  Amsel  Grund,  to  the  Hockstein, 
a  rock  running  up  on  the  side  of  the  Elbe  some  500  feet.  From 
the  main  road  we  reached  it  by  a  little  footpath,  and  at  the  end 
by  a  frail  bridge,  flung  over  a  deep,  yawning  chasm,  called  Wolfs- 
schlucht.  The  prospect  was  very  beautiful,  the  green  of  the  trees 
below  with  the  dark  shade,  and  then  the  winding  river  and  the 
opposite  castle  of  Hohnstein  and  the  village.  This  in  former 
times  was  a  stronghold  of  robber  knights,  this  rock  a  sort  of  look- 
out for  the  opposite  castle.  We  made  our  way  down  to  the  river 
through  the  Schlucht  by  a  very  narrow,  steep  passage,  partly 
steps  cut  in  the  rock,  partly  a  rude  ladder- work ;  then  climbed 
the  steep  ascent  to  the  village.  Here  I  satisfied  my  hunger  and 
thirst  with  fresh  milk,  cold  meat,  bread  and  butter,  and  had  a 
chat  with  a  very  pretty,  rosy-cheeked,  Hohnstein  maiden.  From 
there  we  went  onward  and  soon  came  to  a  place  called  the  Brand, 
where  another  fine  view  is  afforded,  Here  we  came  up  with  a  lot 
of  students,  and  joined  them.  A  dusty,  disagreeable  walk  we  had 
till  we  came  into  Schandau,  about  half  past  two,  a  considerable 
town  on  the  Elbe.  Here  we  found  a  good  house,  and  had  a  good 
time,  with  coffee  and  cigars  and  pleasant  talk.  We  found  here  a 
party  of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  whom  we  met  on  the  mountain 
bridge  at  the  Bastei,  a  German  pastor  and  wife  with  a  pretty, 
black-eyed,  lively  daughter  of  nineteen,  and  a  gentleman  and  wife, 
relatives,  all  going  our  way.  We  filled  two  coaches,  and  rode  to 
the  foot  of  the  Kuhstall,  —  here  a  miserable,  artificial  fall. 
Thence,  tug-tug,  began  our  ascent,  with  the  Kuhstall,  the  Little 
and  finally  the  Great  Winterberg  stretching  away  above  us.  The 
Kuhstall  is  a  singular  natural  arch  some  eighty  feet  wide  and 
nearly  as  high,  through  which,  and  on  top  of  which,  reached 
through  a  narrow  cleft  in  the  rock,  a  mingled  scene  of  rocks  and 


62  DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN   GERMANY. 

trees,  rising  and  piling  upon  each  other,  is  before  the  eye.  From 
here  we  raced  down  the  hill  through  fields  and  forests  to  the  foot 
of  the  Little  Winterberg.  The  singing  of  the  students,  with  the 
additional  excitement  of  ladies  in  the  party,  was  thrilling  and  full 
of  quickening  effect ;  in  going  down  through  narrow,  rocky  ways, 
especially  so  where  the  voices  bounded  over  each  other  and  were 
echoed  through  the  valley  and  up  the  hills.  The  ascent  to  the 
Winterberg  was  long  and  extremely  fatiguing.  The  ladies  made 
it  nobly,  the  little  one  always  ahead.  Finally  we  reached  the 
summit,  about  seven  o'clock.  A  busy  and  stirring  little  world  we 
found  here,  some  1,700  feet  above  the  Elbe,  and  the  highest  of 
the  range  on  this  side  the  river,  also  a  good  hotel  and  well  filled. 
We  got  a  room,  with  two  others,  in  a  little  building  adjoining  the 
hotel,  ours  affording  a  passage  to  another,  where  two  more  were 
finally  deposited  by  the  chambermaid,  after  we  were  got  to  bed, 
and  I  had  been  obliged  to  turn  out  and  unlock  the  door  and  let 
them  in,  with  the  cold  air  rushing  in  upon  me,  with  my  shirt  on. 
But  going  to  bed  was  a  late  operation.  The  dining-hall  was  full 
of  people  when  we  made  our  appearance,  and  we  got  seats  where 
we  could,  and  made  a  hearty  supper.  After  supper  we  got  a  table 
on  one  side  of  the  hall,  with  three  Tyrolese  girls  behind  us,  with 
guitars.  We  were  soon  joined  by  our  lady  party,  and  there  sat 
till  eleven,  with  beer,  talk,  and  singing,  alternating  songs  with  the 
Tyrolese.  The  old  pastor  enjoyed  it  mightily,  and  the  pastorinn 
and  her  laughing,  lively  daughter,  no  less.  Her  little  black  eyes 
sparkled  about  among  TIS,  and  her  tongue  went  glibly,  I  can  well 
testify.  We  all  separated  at  length  with  a  Gute  Nacht,  and  Avf- 
wiedersehen  next  morning  at  sunrise,  to  see  the  king  of  day  as- 
cend over  the  Bohemian  mountains,  though  for  myself  no  other 
idea  was  farther  from  my  kopf  than  such  a  romantic  vision.  I 
slept  soundly,  dreaming  about  steep  hills,  beautiful  prospects,  and 
black  eyes,  and  awoke  refreshed  about  seven  o'clock.  Nobody 
saw  the  sunrise,  though  some  poor  devils  turned  out  and  mounted 
the  cupola  to  greet  an  overclouded  sky,  and  then  turn  in  again 
with  a  plague  on  all  romantic  notions  and  dreamings  of  sunrise. 
But  the  clouds  cleared  away,  the  air  was  fresh  and  delightful,  and 
after  breakfast  down  we  went  to  the  Prebischthor,  on  the  whole 
the  most  magnificent  place  in  the  tour,  a  huge  natural  arch,  colos- 
sal in  dimensions,  and  running  out  into  a  deep,  green  chasm,  and 
surrounded  by  mountains,  far  and  near.  One  single  rock  in  soli- 
tary majesty  runs  up  in  column  form  from  the  chasm  below,  as  if 


DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY.  63 

it  disdained  all  communion  with  all  its  kindred,  a  singular  sight. 
The  arch  itself  120  feet  high ;  all  the  scenery  around,  from  the 
platform  above  the  arch,  is  full  of  wildness.  Thence  a  very  de- 
lightful walk,  most  of  the  way  by  a  little  stream,  till  we  came  at 
length  to  an  awfully  hard-named  place,  Herruskretschen.  Here 
myself  and  friend  went  up  the  river,  and  the  rest  down.  We 
parted  with  the  pastor  (after  a  general  toast,  "Aufglilcldiche 
deine"  started  by  himself)  with  an  invitation  to  come  and  see  him 
at  Bischofswerda,  between  Dresden  and  Bautzen,  and  a  hope  on 
my  part  that  we  should  meet  again  in  America !  With  the  black- 
eyed  daughter  I  parted  after  great  exertions,  with  no  tears  in  my 
eyes,  and,  I  believe,  tolerably  at  heart.  Thence  a  pretty  sail  to 
Tetschen,  and  from  there  a  tedious,  long  ride  to  Teplitz,  the  fa- 
mous German  watering-place,  especially  of  princes  and  nobles. 
The  town  nothing  remarkable,  but  the  vicinity  delightful.  We 
bathed  at  the  city  fountain,  Stadt  Badhaus,  and  drank  some  of 
the  water.  Here  we  joined  our  whole  party,  who  had  had  about 
two  hours'  start  of  us  all  the  way.  From  Teplitz  on  a  fine  warm 
morning  we  marched  out  to  Schlossberg,  a  little  way  out  of  town, 
and  a  hard  hill  it  was  to  climb ;  the  ruins  of  an  old  castle  on  top, 
with  the  ditch  around,  and  all  the  appearance  of  former  strength, 
and  a  beautiful  panorama  view.  I  waited  behind  with  my  friend, 
with  whom  I  had  made  most  of  the  journey,  and  was  finally  left 
entirely  alone,  as  he  concluded  to  go  on  to  Prague  with  a  gentle- 
man we  met  on  the  summit.  So  I  had  a  long  two  hours',  dusty, 
sunny  walk,  over  an  unknown  way,  all  to  myself,  to  Aussig,  on  the 
Elbe.  I  reached  there  just  after  the  others,  who  had  taken  an- 
other road  all  the  way.  Thence  we  took  yondel  and  sailed  down 
river  to  Herrnskretschen,  the  last  part  by  moonlight,  a  most  beau- 
tiful, charming  sail.  We  sang  the  Ave  Sanctissima,  which  ac- 
corded exactly  with  the  whole  occasion.  Late  when  we  left  the 
boat,  and  after  a  late  supper  we  were  glad  to  get  to  bed.  Next 
morning  we  crossed  the  river,  climbed  up  the  steep  bank,  and 
pushed  on  our  way  homewards.  The  most  interesting  object  in 
our  long  day's  walk  (rendered  awful  to  me  from  the  fact  of  hav- 
ing bathed  in  the  Teplitz  hot  water,  and  got  sore  feet  from  it  on 
walking)  was  the  Konigstein  fortress.  Its  lofty  situation,  some 
800  feet  above  the  river ;  impenetrable  strength,  standing  quite 
alone  and  too  far  from  any  other  height  to  be  reached  by  guns, 
and  built  upon  a  natural  rock  basis;  its  beautiful  prospect, — 
the  river  below,  Lilienstein  opposite,  and  the  cultivated  meadow 


64  DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 

hemmed  in  by  the  river,  which  describes  here  a  graceful  bend ; 
the  well,  1,800  feet  deep,  cut  down  in  solid  rock ;  all  conspire  to 
make  a  place  of  extreme  interest.  It  has  never  been  taken,  and 
never  will.  Napoleon  tried  it  by  cannon  from  Lilienstein,  but 
could  effect  nothing.  We  walked  as  far  as  Pirna,  and  from  there 
took  omnibus  to  Dresden,  which  we  reached  about  dark.  I  stayed 
another  day  in  Dresden,  half  of  which  I  spent  in  the  Gallery,  and 
the  afternoon  in  the  Griine  Gewolbe,  —  vaults  under  the  palace 
containing  the  collected  treasures  of  the  crown,  and  a  most  sump- 
tuous collection,  too !  But  I  was  soon  satiated  ;  precious  stones, 
diamonds,  costly  brilliant  objects,  how  soon  they  pall  upon  the 
sight !  What  a  contrast  with  works  of  divine  art !  I  took  leave 
of  this  beautiful  Dresden  with  hope  of  seeing  it  again.  A  dusty, 
disagreeable  railroad  ride  to  Leipsic,  and  thence  to  Halle,  which 
we  reached  at  length,  heated,  fatigued,  and  sleepy.  Ate  a  light 
dinner  at  home,  and  philosophically  spent  the  whole  afternoon  in 
snoozing  on  my  sofa.  My  windows  were  open  all  the  time,  so  that 
I  got  a  dreadful  cold,  from  which  I  have  been  suffering  ever  since. 
Here  must  end  my  record  of  a  very  delightful  tour. 
Zum  Andenken  der  S'dchischen  Schweitz! 

AN  ANTICIPATED   TOUR  WITH   THOLUCK. 

May  27,  1842.  Spent  the  evening  with  Tholuck  and  the  Frau 
Rathinn ;  no  one  else  there ;  their  garden  rooms  most  delightful. 
Both  of  them  in  fine  spirits.  So  after  all  he  is  not  going  to 
Scotland.  His  doctor  protests  against  it,  and  his  wife  too,  and 
himself  yields  that  on  the  whole  it  would  be  imprudent.  Well  for 
me  that  I  had  not  set  my  heart  to  go  with  him.  He  has  now 
invited  me  to  make  the  tour  of  the  Rhine  with  him  through 
Switzerland  over  Munich  and  Augsburg.  Just  what  I  wanted.  I 
took  him  up  in  a  moment ;  told  him  I  would  go  with  him  anywhere 
on  the  Continent,  and  travel  anyway  he  chose.  (Must  confess  I 
felt  flattered  at  the  manner  in  which  himself  and  wife  received 
my  reply.  The  latter  quite  broke  out  in  exclamation  and  proceeded 
to  tell  me  how  I  must  look  out  for  the  health  and  comfort  of  the 
professor.1)  This  tour  with  Tholuck  is  just  what  I  have  wished. 
I  shall  anticipate  it  with  great  delight. 

1  In  the  diary  these  two  sentences,  probably  from  feelings  of  modesty,  were 
very  carefully  blotted  out.  The  diary  here  ends  abruptly,  or,  if  it  was  ever 
continued,  the  remainder  has  been  lost. 


DIARY   OF  STUDENT  LIFE   IN  GERMANY.  65 

Tholuck  recalls  this  Alpine  trip  in  the  following  characteristic  English 
letter  written  by  him  from  Halle,  August  28,  1843,  to  "  Rev.  John  Lin- 
coln, Studiosus  Theol.  aus  America :  "  — 

"  I  am  very  glad  that  you  have  written  to  me  before  setting  out. 
Next  Monday  I  must  drive  to  Magdeburg,  so  that  you  would  just 
miss  me  if  you  should  arrive  that  day.  Let  me  request,  therefore 
as  much  as  I  can,  to  arrange  your  journey  so  as  to  arrive  Satur- 
day evening  and  right  into  my  house.  If  you  do  not,  you  will 
leave  behind  you  in  Germany  a  broken  heart.  I  hope  to  be  en- 
abled to  devote  you  a  great  part  of  the  Sunday  and  to  enjoy  once 
more  in  recollection  with  you  the  day  of  the  Furca,  the  Gotthard, 
Monte  Cenere,  and  so  on. 

"You  must  absolutely  devote  to  me  this  day.  What  would 
Mrs.  Tholuck  say  if  you  had  left  Germany  without  having  be- 
griisst  once  more  that  house  where  you  will  not  soon  be  forgotten  ? 
I  take  it  for  granted  that  next  Saturday  evening  the  railroad  will 
bring  you  into  my  house  and  into  my  arms." 

On  a  previous  page,  in  Professor  Lincoln's  Notes  of  his  Life,  refer- 
ence is  made  to  this  journey.  Among  his  letters  from  Germany,  on  a  later 
page,  may  be  found  some  description  of  a  carriage  journey,  which,  how- 
ever, appears  to  have  been  a  distinct  and  shorter  excursion.  A  very  in- 
teresting account  of  this  Alpine  journey  is  found  in  Witte's  "  Das  Leben 
d.  Friedrich  August  Gottreu  Tholuck  "  (Band  II.  s.  473-478).  From 
this  account  we  learn  that  Tholuck's  companions  were  Wedler  (for  a  long 
time  his  amanuensis)  and  "  two  young  American  theological  students,  a 
Mr.  Hay  of  New  York  (?)  and  Mr.  Lincoln  of  Boston.  The  last  was  a 
Baptist,  of  whom  Tholuck  was  especially  fond.  '  Oh,  how  I  love  that 
nervous,  humorous,  intelligent  boy,'  he  wrote  once  in  his  diary."  The 
journey  was  by  carriage  via  Heidelberg  to  Switzerland.  On  the  way 
Tholuck  was  exceedingly  ill,  and  almost  wholly  unable  to  sleep.  Several 
days  were  passed  in  Berne,  where  Tholuck,  although  weak  in  body, 
preached  with  great  power.  At  Interlaken  the  party  visited  the  Lauter- 
brunnen  waterfall  by  night,  and  Tholuck  was  so  refreshed  by  the  Alpine 
air  that  next  morning  they  pushed  on,  arriving  at  evening  at  Grindel- 
wald,  and  the  next  at  the  Grimsel  Hospice.  There  they  heard  that  Pro- 
fessor Agassiz  and  Mr.  Forbes  were  on  the  Upper  Aar  Glacier,  engaged 
in  researches  as  to  glacial  phenomena.  Next  morning  the  party  set  out 
at  six  o'clock  with  two  guides,  to  climb  to  the  glacier,  8,000  feet  high, 
each  with  a  long  staff.  After  an  hour  they  came  to  the  ice  crevasses, 
which  one  must  leap  over.  Into  one  of  these  Tholuck  sank  his  long 
staff  ;  suddenly  it  slipped  from  his  hand,  and  it  could  be  heard  as  it  fell 
down  into  immeasurable  depths.  Tholuck  would  go  no  farther,  but 


66  DIARY  OF  STUDENT  LIFE  IN  GERMANY. 

returned  with  one  guide,  while  the  others  continued,  and  were  received 
most  hospitably  by  Agassiz  in  his  hut  on  the  ice.  In  the  evening  Agas- 
siz  descended  to  the  Grimsel  to  meet  Tholuck. 

The  next  day  the  travelers  proceeded  on  foot  through  the  valley  of 
the  Rhone  over  the  Furca  Pass.  It  was  a  rainy  day,  —  stormy,  horrid 
weather,  and  Tholuck  could  hardly  move,  yet  forced  himself  to  go  on. 
The  next  day  they  walked  over  the  Gotthard,  and  reached  Giornice  at 
eleven  at  night.  Here  the  crowded,  dirty  rooms  proved  so  disagreeable 
that  Tholuck  decided  to  go  on  at  any  cost,  and  a  wretched  little  wagon,  in 
which  they  sat  on  cross-boards  clinging  to  one  another  to  avoid  being 
jolted  out,  brought  them  to  Lugano.  From  Milan  the  return  to  Swit- 
zerland was  made  by  the  Simplon.  On  the  way  the  "  Americans  "  had 
gone  on  ahead,  and  Tholuck  and  Wedler  turned  off  on  a  footpath  which 
appeared  to  be  a  short  cut.  Here  they  came  to  a  chasm  some  2,000  feet 
deep,  crossed  by  a  round  spruce-tree  about  twenty  feet  long,  over  which 
they  safely  crossed,  rather  than  return  and  seek  the  road  they  had  left. 

During  all  this  journey  Tholuck  talked  freely  of  practical  religious 
themes,  as  was  his  custom,  with  the  guides,  drivers,  or  others  in  whose 
company  he  might  chance  to  be.  Doubtless  Professor  Lincoln  had  in 
mind  these  instances  of  what  may  be  called  Tholuck's  everyday  theol- 
ogy, when  he  mentions  in  his  Notes  and  Diary  and  Letters  the  name  of 
Tholuck  with  so  profound  admiration  and  gratitude. 


LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

HAMBURG   CUSTOMS  AND  HABITS.  —  TRIALS  OF  BAPTIST   MISSIONS. 

(A  Letter  to  "The  Watchman.") 

HAMBURG,  September  24,  1841.  Arrived  in  this  city  at  about 
one  P.  M.,  after  a  very  pleasant  voyage  from  London,  of  about 
fifty  hours,  in  the  steamer  Countess  of  Lonsdale.  We  were  saved 
the  trouble  and  detention  of  a  custom-house  examination  on  land- 
ing ;  but  were  met  on  the  steps  of  the  wharf  by  a  man  of  author- 
ity, with  book  and  pen  and  ink,  who  quietly  asked  our  names, 
profession,  and  business.  Being  quite  unaccustomed  to  this  pro- 
cess, I  felt  instinctively  tempted  to  ask  in  reply  of  what  possible 
concern  all  this  was  to  him.  But  recollecting  that  this  was  but 
the  beginning  of  evils  in  traveling  on  the  Continent,  I  at  once  en- 
deavored to  check  all  such  improper  tendencies.  In  my  turn,  I 
gave  him  my  name,  told  him  I  had  no  profession,  and  in  regard  to 
business  was  on  my  way  to  Germany  as  a  student.  On  the  Con- 
tinent, a  traveler  must  submit  with  as  good  a  grace  as  possible  to 
exhibit  his  passport  vised  by  an  indefinite  number  of  ministers, 
consuls,  and  police  agents,  every  time  he  comes  to  a  place  that  falls 
within  the  limits  of  a  new  dominion.  To  an  American,  this  sys- 
tem of  strict  surveillance  furnishes  constant  occasion  to  keep  alive 
within  him  the  memory  of  his  own  country,  where  one  may  come 
and  go  at  will,  without  molestation,  if  he  only  pays  his  bills  and 
behaves  like  a  quiet,  gentlemanly  citizen.  But  the  reduction  in 
the  rate  of  charges  which  he  meets  with  on  reaching  the  Conti- 
nent is  very  agreeable  to  one  who  has  just  been  traveling  in 
England.  It  is  rather  surprising  how  many  little  facilities  exist 
in  England  for  lightening  the  traveler's  purse,  particularly  in 
regard  to  servants.  It  may  be  estimated  that  a  single  look  from 
an  English  servant  costs  about  sixpence,  and  all  other  services  are 
quite  in  proportion. 

Occupied  the  remainder  of  the  day  in  walking  about  the  city,  to 
observe  its  objects  of  interest.  I  had  occasion  to  observe  on  the 
streets  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  place,  of  which  I  had  be- 


68  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

fore  heard  and  read.  Saw  some  of  the  hired  mourners  who  are 
employed  for  funeral  processions.  They  were  dressed  in  black, 
with  short  cloaks,  powdered  wigs,  and  with  plaited  ruffs  about 
their  necks.  A  stranger  cannot  fail,  also,  to  be  struck  with  the 
appearance  of  the  female  domestics  in  the  streets,  when  on  an 
errand  to  the  market,  or  to  perform  some  other  house  service. 
They  are  dressed  as  if  for  some  other  purpose,  with  elegantly 
worked  caps,  long  kid  gloves,  and  large,  gay  shawls.  They  man- 
age to  adjust  this  last  article  upon  the  arm,  so  as  to  conceal  a 
basket  containing  the  articles  they  have  just  procured  from  the 
market  or  elsewhere. 

Saturday,  25.  Called  to-day  to  see  Mr.  Oncken,  the  well-known 
missionary  connected  with  our  American  Baptist  board.  Was 
disappointed  to  find  he  was  not  at  home.  He  is  absent  from  the 
city,  on  a  tour  connected  with  the  mission,  chiefly  to  organize  a 
church  in  Meinel,  Prussia,  and  one  in  Pomerania,  both  which  have 
been  gathered  under  interesting  circumstances.  I  gained  some  in- 
teresting information  from  Mrs.  O.,  in  relation  to  the  Hamburg 
mission,  and  also  the  mission  in  Denmark.  The  civil  authorities 
in  Hamburg  desist,  at  present,  from  all  measures  of  open  vio- 
lence. The  delegation  of  English  and  American  clergy  seems  to 
have  produced  some  salutary  results.  If  it  has  not  awakened  the 
thoughtful  attention  of  the  magistrates  and  people  to  the  subject 
of  religious  toleration,  it  has,  at  least,  presented  to  them  in  a  new 
attitude  the  little  band  of  Christians  on  whom  they  have  poured 
their  contempt  and  denunciations,  as  well  as  inflicted  civil  pun- 
ishment, by  showing  that  they  are  connected  in  opinions,  practice, 
and  sympathy  with  extensive  Christian  communities  in  other  coun- 
tries. But  still  the  position  of  Mr.  O.  and  his  fellow-laborers  is 
only  one  of  sufferance.  The  laws  against  them  have  not  been 
relaxed,  nor  altered  in  the  least  degree,  and  are  liable  to  be  en- 
forced with  the  same  rigor  as  before.  The  grand  source  of  all 
the  persecution  is  to  be  traced  to  the  established  clergy.  They 
are  opposed  to  this  missionary  movement  by  the  prejudices  of 
education,  their  station,  and  by  strong  considerations  of  temporal 
interest ;  and  all  history  proves  that  where  serious  spiritual  errors 
prevail  in  a  community,  such  a  clergy  present  the  most  deter- 
mined and  bigoted  opposition  to  a  reformation.  They  influence 
the  separate  families  of  their  congregations,  and  thus  the  whole 
people.  These  ministers  of  Christ  profess  to  behold  with  extreme 
concern  the  religious  efforts  of  Mr.  Oiicken  and  his  brethren. 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  69 

They  ask  among  themselves,  To  what  will  all  this  lead  ?  These 
men  are  invading  the  quiet,  questioning  the  long-established  insti- 
tions,  threatening  to  subvert  the  very  structure  of  our  church. 
And  associating  the  progress  of  truth  and  of  the  spiritual  king- 
dom of  Christ  only  with  the  one  form  prevailing  among  them- 
selves, under  the  protection  of  the  state,  they  would  fain  persuade 
themselves,  and  teach  the  people,  that  this  innovating  organiza- 
tion is  pregnant  with  the  seeds  of  heresy  and  schism,  and  des- 
tined, if  not  checked  and  crushed,  to  retard  the  progress  and 
even  extinguish  the  existence  of  Christianity  in  the  community. 
It  may  be  that  these  clerical  gentlemen  have  yet  to  learn  that  this 
divine  religion  may  not  be  dependent  upon  any  one  particular 
form,  least  of  all,  a  state-established  form  ;  nay,  may  flourish,  and 
win  its  best  victories,  even  amid  many  forms. 

The  Denmark  Mission  continues  in  a  very  critical  state.  The 
trial  of  the  brethren  has  terminated  unfavorably,  as  was  feared. 
They  are  condemned  to  a  heavy  fine,  and  commanded  to  desist 
from  their  labors.  To  this  they  cannot  submit,  and  have  appealed 
to  a  higher  court,  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  in  the  kingdom. 
In  the  mean  time,  the  missionaries  are  kept  in  prison.  Here,  too, 
it  is  the  priesthood  who  keep  alive  the  flame  of  persecution.  The 
queen  is  said  to  be  disposed  to  toleration,  but  is  kept  back  by  their 
influence.  Many  of  the  people  sympathize  with  the  persecuted, 
and  one  or  two  of  the  public  prints  espouse  their  cause.  It  is  a 
singular  fact  that  the  presiding  officer  of  the  court  before  whom 
the  trial  has  already  been  held  was  removed,  pro  tern.,  from  his 
office,  because  it  was  known  that  he  was  a  man  of  liberal  opinions, 
and  it  was  feared  that  he  would  pronounce  a  decision  favorable  to 
the  prisoners.  I  have  learned  that  he  frequently  visited  them  in 
prison,  exhorted  them  to  constancy,  and  even  avowed  to  the  pris- 
oners that  his  opinions  and  feelings  were  with  them.  The  whole 
subject  has  awakened  general  interest  in  Copenhagen.  Whatever 
may  be  the  immediate  results  of  this  affair,  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  a  train  of  causes  has  been  set  in  operation  which  will  result, 
sooner  or  later,  in  the  more  correct  views  of  religious  freedom  and 
the  advancement  of  a  simpler,  purer  Christianity. 

26th.  It  has  been  Sunday  here  to-day,  but  not  the  Sabbath.  The 
distinction  is  quite  necessary.  To  the  exclusion  of  its  peculiar 
sacredness,  the  general  idea  of  a  holiday,  partly  in  a  religious  and 
partly  in  a  secular  sense,  seems  to  be  the  one  entertained  here 
with  regard  to  this  day.  And,  with  the  exception  of  England, 


70  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

this  is  probably  the  case  throughout  Europe,  both  in  theory  and 
practice.  The  general  outward  aspect  of  this  city  to-day  would 
remind  a  New  Englander  of  a  Fourth  of  July  celebration,  though 
indeed  he  would  miss  those  great  Sabbath-school  celebrations 
which,  of  late  years,  have  become  such  an  important  and  delight- 
ful feature  in  the  festivities  of  our  national  jubilee. 

Yet,  on  some  accounts,  this  has  been  a  day  which  I  shall  not 
soon  forget.  It  is  more  profitable  and  delightful  to  visit  those 
missionary  spots  and  scenes  which  have  gained  a  kind  of  sacred- 
ness  from  long  association  with  the  "  Monthly  Concert "  and  the 
"  Missionary  Magazine."  It  gives  one  some  insight,  as  for  the 
first  time,  into  the  nature  of  a  missionary  life,  and  helps  him,  not 
to  laud  in  unfelt  words,  but  to  feel  in  his  heart  the  blessings  of  a 
more  favored  land,  and  especially  the  priceless  value  of  a  religious 
freedom.  To  see  a  little  band  of  the  disciples  of  Christ  gathered 
together  like  the  disciples  in  Jerusalem,  "  in  an  upper  room,"  and 
for  a  similar  reason  isolated  in  the  midst  of  a  great  city,  con- 
temned, despised,  threatened  with  fines  and  imprisonment,  and 
liable  at  any  moment  to  be  interrupted  in  the  midst  of  their  devo- 
tions and  dispersed  by  the  civil  authorities,  is  a  spectacle  which 
awakens  in  one's  mind  a  throng  of  interesting  reflections,  which 
may  have  occurred  to  him  before,  but  have  never  come  home  to 
his  bosom  with  that  freshness  and  life  with  which  they  are  now 
invested.  And  who  on  earth  can  suggest  any  satisfactory  reason 
why  such  a  moral  phenomenon  should  be  allowed  to  exist,  espe- 
cially in  a  professedly  Christian  city? 

At  nine  o'clock  I  went  to  Mr.  Oncken's  house,  to  be  present  at 
the  services  of  his  church.  They  are  compelled  by  the  laws  to 
meet  in  this  private  manner,  though  from  their  number  it  is  very 
inconvenient.  They  meet  twice  on  the  Sabbath,  half  the  church 
at  a  time.  Found  the  room  full,  and  people  in  the  entry  and  on 
the  stairs.  In  the  absence  of  Mr.  Oncken,  Mr.  Kobner  officiated. 
The  services  being  in  German,  I  could  only  catch  a  word  here 
and  there,  and  understood  but  little.  But  still  they  were  full  of 
interest.  The  natural  language  of  the  preacher  and  his  hearers, 
in  connection  with  all  the  circumstances,  was  quite  enough  for  the 
mind  and  heart.  Throughout,  and  especially  in  his  prayers,  Mr. 
K.  seemed  pervaded  with  the  truest  earnestness.  His  eloquence 
was  of  the  .heart,  and  his  gestures,  his  expressions  of  countenance, 
his  whole  frame,  united  with  the  voice  in  giving  utterance  to  the 
life-giving  truth.  And  in  silent  attention,  and  apparently  with 


LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  71 

the  fullest  sympathy,  his  audience  heard  his  words.  It  was  of 
itself  an  eloquent  spectacle  to  observe  the  solemn  earnestness  visi- 
ble on  every  countenance.  It  was  good  to  be  there.  In  a  scene 
so  full  of  influences  congenial  to  devotion,  a  spot  which  seemed  to 
afford  unwonted  nearness  in  prayer,  one  could  but  lift  his  soul  to 
God  in  humble  thanks  for  the  gift  of  the  gospel,  and  in  petition 
for  these  his  servants,  who  felt  its  rich  blessings  in  their  own 
hearts,  and  in  the  midst  of  obloquy  and  persecution  were  seeking 
to  shed  them  abroad  in  the  hearts  of  their  fellow-men. 

OLD -TIME    RAPID    TRANSIT.  — JOURNEYMEN. LEIPSIC     IN    FAIR 

TIME. — GERMAN    LANGUAGE    AND    GERMAN    BEDS. 

(A  Letter  to  "The  Watchman.1") 

Hamburg,  September  26,  1841.  We  leave  to-night  for  Leipsic, 
with  the  comfortable  prospect  of  riding  forty  hours  by  coach, 
night  and  day.  By  means  of  this  conveyance,  and  the  line  of 
steamers  from  London  to  Hamburg,  one  may  go  from  London  to 
Leipsic  in  five  days.  And  allowing  fourteen  days  for  a  passage 
across  the  Atlantic  in  one  of  the  Cunard  steamers,  and  one  day 
from  Liverpool  to  London,  it  is  thus  possible  to  accomplish  a 
journey  from  the  good  city  of  Boston  to  the  city  of  Leipsic,  a  dis- 
tance of  some  4,500  miles,  in  less  than  three  weeks !  Verily,  we 
can  get  beyond  the  vulgar  ideas  of  time  and  space  without  the 
help  of  a  spiritual  philosophy ! 

Tuesday,  28.  This  conveyance  goes  by  the  German  name  of 
Schnell  Post  (Quick  Post).  Its  rate  of  progress,  however,  does 
not  well  correspond  with  its  name,  thus  far  at  least,  not  more  than 
five  miles  an  hour,  and  renders  it  not  unworthy  the  name  some- 
times given  it  by  the  incorrect  pronunciation  of  English  travelers, 
Snail  Post.  All  the  carriages,  offices,  and  buildings  belong  to 
the  government,  and  are  superintended  by  its  officers.  No  one 
can  take  a  place  without  showing  his  passport,  and  having  it  vised, 
and  indorsed  for  the  place  to  which  he  is  going.  The  road  we 
have  found  generally  good,  in  some  parts  macadamized.  For 
about  thirty  miles  from  Hamburg  it  passes  through  the  Danish 
territory  of  Lauenburg.  The  country  affords  good  material  for 
macadamizing,  in  the  boulder  rocks  of  slate  and  granite  which  are 
scattered  over  it  and  are  said  to  be  found,  indeed,  throughout 
northern  Germany.  These  boulders,  from  the  fact  that  they  do 
not  geologically  belong  to  the  country  between  the  Elbe  and  the 


72  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

Baltic,  are  supposed  to  have  been  transported  from  the  mountains 
of  Norway  and  Sweden  by  some  vast  current  of  water,  perhaps 
the  floods  of  the  Deluge. 

A  person  traveling  on  any  one  of  these  great  roads  in  Germany 
will  become  acquainted,  by  frequent  personal  observation,  with  a 
curious  custom  which  prevails  throughout  the  country.  He  will 
observe  young  men,  travelers  on  foot,  decently  dressed,  and  always 
having  a  stick  in  hand,  knapsacks  on  their  backs,  and  above  all 
pipes  in  their  mouths.  They  are  traveling  journeymen,  called  in 
German,  Ilandwerksburschen.  It  is  an  old  rule  that  no  appren- 
tice shall  become  a  master  in  his  trade  until  he  has  traveled  sev- 
eral years,  and  exercised  his  trade  in  other  countries.  The  prac- 
tical intention  of  this  is  to  give  him  some  knowledge  of  the  world 
as  well  as  information  about  his  own  craft  as  it  is  practiced  in 
other  countries  besides  his  own.  When  he  starts  on  his  journey 
he  receives  a  book  in  which  he  is  to  keep  an  account  of  his  wan- 
derings. Whenever  he  wishes  to  stop  he  applies  to  a  master- 
workman  in  his  trade  for  employment.  If  work  can  be  given  him 
he  remains  for  a  while ;  if  not,  after  a  short  delay,  he  journeys  on. 
Sometimes,  when  work  is  scarce,  he  is  reduced  to  extremities,  and 
becomes  an  object  of  charity.  Whatever  inconveniences  may 
belong  to  such  a  custom,  it  is  obvious  that  it  may  raise  up  a  very 
intelligent  set  of  workmen.  I  have  seen  it  stated,  upon  good 
authority,  that  by  this  means  tradesmen  are  not  unfrequently  en- 
abled to  speak  three  or  four  languages,  and  acquire  a  large  stock 
of  general  knowledge,  and  become  well  informed  as  to  the  state  of 
many  of  the  countries  of  Europe.  When  his  wanderings  are 
ended  the  apprentice  comes  home,  and  commences  business  as  a 
master-workman . 

Wednesday,  29.  At  about  nine  A.  M.  we  reached  Magdeburg. 
Here  we  gladly  left  stage-coach  and  proceeded  to  Leipsic  by  rail- 
road, where  we  arrived  at  about  four  P.  M.  The  business  of  get- 
ting established  in  a  hotel  on  the  Continent  is  not  so  simple  a 
process  as  in  England  or  America.  All  hotel-keepers  are  obliged 
to  submit  to  the  police  an  account  of  the  arrival  and  departure 
of  their  guests.  The  "  Stranger's  Book  "  is  brought  to  you  for 
the  entry,  not  merely  of  your  name  and  residence,  but  also  for  all 
manner  of  things  about  your  private  affairs,  which  it  is  a  study  at 
first  to  attend  to  with  due  order.  Then  your  passport  must  be 
sent  to  the  police,  a  receipt  given  you,  allowing  you  to  remain  a 
stated  length  of  time.  At  the  end  of  this  time,  if  you  wish  to  stay 


LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  73 

longer,  you  must  have  it  renewed,  and  when  you  leave  town  it  is 
delivered  back  to  the  authorities,  and  your  passport  returned. 

On  going  out  to  see  the  city,  we  found  ourselves  in  the  midst 
of  one  of  the  great  Leipsic  fairs.  It  seemed  as  though  all  the 
world  had  come  to  Leipsic,  and,  arrayed  in  their  respective  na- 
tional costumes,  were  mingled  together  in  the  streets  in  a  grand 
masquerade.  All  the  squares  and  streets  were  filled  with  booths 
and  stalls,  in  which  were  exhibited  all  kinds  of  goods.  But  I 
searched  in  vain  for  books,  and  as  I  afterwards  learned,  for  the 
very  good  reason  that  there  were  none.  The  book  trade  is  not 
affected  by  these  fairs,  except  that  the  booksellers  are  accustomed 
to  meet  together  for  the  mutual  settlement  of  accounts.  But  a 
long  and  tedious  ride  was  a  poor  preparation  for  exploring  such 
a  scene,  and  we  were  glad  to  make  our  way  back  to  the  hotel. 

The  first  part  of  one's  residence  in  a  foreign  country,  when  he 
cannot  speak  the  language,  is  full  of  little  personal  events  which 
will  long  abide  in  his  memory.  His  experience  is  apt  to  awaken 
a  distinct  recollection  of  the  history  of  the  Tower  of  Babel ;  and 
at  such  a  time  the  whole  affair  seems  to  have  been  an  extremely 
unfortunate  one.  He  is  visited  by  an  order  of  sensation  quite 
peculiar,  and  not  unfrequently  rather  uncomfortable.  It  is  the 
worst  sort  of  a  quarantine.  You  are  so  cut  off  from  rational, 
kindly  intercourse  with  your  fellow-men,  who  seem  to  be  moving 
about  you  in  a  kind  of  panoramic  show,  that  you  might  as  well 
have  your  abode  on  one  of  the  desolate  isles  of  the  sea.  But  one 
must  be  sure  to  keep  in  good  humor,  taking  special  care  to  laugh 
a  great  deal,  whatever  befalls  him ;  and  for  the  first  few  days, 
even  for  the  supply  of  ordinary  wants,  must  rely  upon  his  wits 
and  a  phrase  book.  My  friend,  who  is  with  me,  and  whose  com- 
pany I  have  enjoyed  during  the  whole  journey  from  Boston,  has 
remarked  to  me  that  there  are  two  German  phrases  which  one 
ought  to  have  as  capital  at  the  outset,  namely :  Ich  verstehe  nicht 
(I  don't  understand),  and  Wie  heissen  Sie  das?  (What  do  you  call 
that  ?)  He  will  be  sure  to  find  it  to  his  account  to  make  himself 
a  perfect  master  of  these  as  speedily  as  possible.  The  latter  is  to 
be  used  for  making  acquisitions,  and  the  former  chiefly  for  self- 
defense,  and  to  be  pronounced  with  as  much  composure  as  you 
can  command,  when  a  man  takes  the  liberty  to  talk  to  you  as 
though  you  were  a  native,  and  sets  up  a  distracting  hurly-burly 
of  sounds  about  you,  as  if  you  were  in  the  midst  of  the  machinery 
of  a  New  England  steam  factory.  It  matters  not  at  first  how- 


74  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

ever  familiarly  one  may  be  acquainted  with  the  language  in  books. 
This  is  an  entirely  different  thing  from  being  able  to  speak  it  and 
to  understand  it  when  you  hear  it  spoken.  The  ear  must  first 
pass  through  its  novitiate,  and  learn  to  distinguish  the  sounds 
with  readiness  and  correctness.  Then  one  may  make  rapid  pro- 
gress, and  then,  too,  no  amount  of  previous  knowledge  comes  amiss. 
Everything  becomes  a  source  of  instruction.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  one  can  acquire  a  language  in  the  country  where  it  is 
spoken,  with  vastly  more  pleasure,  rapidity,  and  correctness  than 
at  home.  There  can  be  no  comparison  between  the  cases.  You 
feel  that  you  are  really  in  contact  with  a  language,  a  living  lan- 
guage, and  not  a  mere  collection  of  printed  characters.  Especially 
is  one  constantly  urged,  and  also  furnished  with  numerous  facili- 
ties, to  increase  his  stock  of  words,  and  not  only  to  increase  them, 
which  of  itself  is  nothing  at  all,  but  to  strive  with  the  utmost  care 
to  retain  them  in  the  memory.  This  is  a  point  of  the  first  impor- 
tance in  all  languages,  and  hence  the  invaluable  utility  of  frequent 
reviewing.  The  principle  of  repetition,  incessant  repetition,  can- 
not be  too  much  insisted  upon  in  the  study  of  languages.  Only 
the  practice  must  be  pursued  intelligently,  and  with  diligence  and 
interest,  and  not,  as  in  some  instances,  as  a  mere  lifeless,  inane 
form. 

One  of  the  most  disagreeable  things  to  a  stranger,  on  first  com- 
ing to  this  country,  is  the  German  arrangement  for  a  bed.  To  an 
Englishman  or  an  American  this  seems  at  first  a  very  extraordi- 
nary conti'ivance.  It  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  inferiority  of 
the  Germans  in  all  practical  matters,  especially  in  all  that  con- 
cerns the  comforts  of  life.  Indeed,  there  is  really  no  word  in  the 
language  which  fully  expresses  the  English  idea  of  comfort.  I 
had  some  previous  notion  of  a  German  bed  from  a  college  account 
of  it,  which  I  remember  to  have  once  heard,  but  I  was  not  quite 
prepared  for  the  reality.  As  for  curtains,  or  indeed  any  fixtures 
whereon  to  hang  them,  these  things  are  entirely  extraneous  to  the 
whole  arrangement.  Nor  is  there,  properly  speaking,  any  bed- 
stead. The  poor  substitute  for  it  is  a  low,  boxlike  frame,  always 
constructed  for  only  one  person ;  and  also,  in  all  its  dimensions, 
evidently  constructed  with  a  democratic  view  to  people  of  middling 
stature,  as  that  class  is  supposed  to  be  in  the  majority.  A  tall 
gentleman  must  find  himself  in  very  close  quarters,  and  be  obliged 
to  use  some  little  ingenuity  for  the  proper  bestowment  of  his 
whole  person.  Then  the  pillows  are  very  large,  and  make  a  very 


LETTERS  FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  75 

low  angle  with  the  bed,  coming  nearly  half  way  down,  as  if,  on 
going  to  bed,  one  intended,  on  the  whole,  not  to  lie  down  at  full 
length,  but  only  to  put  himself  into  a  reclining,  half-sitting  pos- 
ture. 

But  the  most  peculiar  thing  is  that  you  not  only  have  a  bed 
under  you,  but  also  one  above  you ;  for  a  feather  bed  supplies  the 
place  of  blankets  and  all  other  articles  of  clothing.  In  sickness, 
especially  in  case  of  a  desperate  cold,  one  of  these  things  may 
have  an  excellent  effect  in  promoting  perspiration ;  and  perhaps  a 
considerate  physician  might  order  two  with  advantage.  But  at 
other  times  it  is  liable  to  the  obvious  objection  of  being  rather  too 
warm,  except  in  the  coldest  weather,  and  then,  too,  unless  one  is 
of  very  quiet  habits,  it  is  liable  to  be  kicked  off,  and  leave  the 
sleeper  in  the  utmost  extremity,  who,  on  waking,  finds  the  tem- 
perature of  his  body  very  rapidly  sinking  to  the  freezing  point. 
In  very  warm  weather,  if  the  bed  keep  its  position  during  the 
whole  night,  it  is  well  if  one  escape  suffocation.  I  have  seen  the 
remark,  quoted  from  Coleridge,  that  "  he  would  rather  carry  his 
blanket  about  with  him,  like  a  wild  Indian,  than  submit  to  this 
abominable  custom." 

LEIPSIC   PUBLISHERS   AND   PROFESSORS. 

(A  Letter  to  "The  Watchman.") 

Leipsic,  September  30,  1841.  Through  the  politeness  of  Mr. 
Tauchnitz,  to  whom  we  brought  letters,  we  have  become  acquainted 
to-day  with  most  of  the  objects  of  interest  in  Leipsic.  The  name 
of  Tauchnitz  is  familiar  to  every  student,  as  a  publisher,  especially 
of  editions  of  the  classics.  His  establishment  is  one  of  the  largest 
in  Germany.  He  is  a  man  of  liberal  education  and  of  the  kindest 
manners,  and  also  a  decidedly  pious  man.  I  remember  to  have  seen 
an  allusion  to  his  religious  history,  in  a  speech  of  Professor  Sears 
on  the  religious  condition  of  Germany,  delivered,  I  believe,  at  the 
meeting  of  the  Triennial  Convention  in  New  York,  in  '38.  When 
he  first  became  a  Christian,  some  ten  years  ago  or  more,  his  piety 
gave  so  great  offense  to  his  father  that  he  threatened  to  disinherit 
him,  though  an  only  child.  But  the  father  not  long  after  died 
very  suddenly,  without  having  made  a  will,  and  his  son  came  into 
immediate  possession  of  his  estate.  It  could  not  have  fallen  into 
better  hands. 

In  St.  Nicholas's  Church,  considered  the  finest  in  the  town, 


76  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

Luther  preached  his  first  Protestant  sermon,  at  the  introduction 
of  the  Reformation.  We  saw,  in  a  closet  in  the  church,  the  identical 
pulpit  in  which  he  preached.  Leipsic  is  celebrated  for  its  Uni- 
versity, its  commercial  importance,  and  its  interesting  historical 
events.  The  University,  after  that  of  Prague,  is  the  oldest  in 
Germany,  and  was  founded  in  1409.  Here,  among  sixty  other 
professors,  and  nearly  as  many  privatim  docentes,  are  Winer,  in 
the  department  of  theology ;  and  in  the  classics  and  classic  history 
and  antiquities,  Hermann,  Wachsmuth,  Westermann,  and  Haupt. 
The  library  contains  about  100,000  volumes,  and  the  average 
number  of  .students  is  1,000.  We  find  that  it  is  vacation  at  present, 
and  the  next  semester  will  begin  in  about  a  fortnight. 

Three  fairs  are  held  here  during  the  year,  in  January,  in  March, 
and  in  September.  During  this  time,  Leipsic  is  visited  by  people 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  sometimes  to  the  number  of  40,000 ; 
in  the  year  1834  the  names  of  80,000  were  entered  on  the  books 
of  the  police.  The  sales  amount  annually  to  more  than  fifty 
millions  of  dollars.  The  sale  of  books  is  one  of  the  most  important 
branches  of  business  in  Leipsic.  Indeed,  the  whole  book  trade  of 
book-making  Germany,  which  at  present  is  flooding  the  world 
with  books  at  the  rate  of  8,000  per  annum,  is  centred  at  Leipsic ; 
and  every  bookseller  in  the  country  has  an  agent  here.  At  the 
March  fair,  the  time  of  their  annual  meeting,  600  booksellers 
sometimes  meet  together  for  the  settlement  of  their  accounts. 
They  have  a  large  exchange  building,  where  they  meet  for  the 
transaction  of  their  business. 

HALLE. — HIGH  LIVING  AT  LOW  COST. UNIVERSITY  LIFE.  —  PRO- 
FESSOR AND  MRS.  THOLUCK. A  BRITISH- AMERICAN  WAR-CLOUD. 

Here  I  am  in  the  city  of  Halle,  No.  147  Fleischegasse,  alias 
Butchers'  Street  (and  yet  no  mean  street,  I  assure  you,  for 
Tholuck  is  my  very  next  door  neighbor),  in  my  own  study, 
where  I  have  been  living  for  two  weeks  in  real  bachelor  style,  and 
expect  to  remain  till  spring,  and  perhaps  longer.  Indeed,  for  my 
tastes  there  is  quite  too  much  of  the  bachelor  about  it.  My 
dinner  I  get  at  a  public  place,  and  my  breakfast  and  supper  are 
brought  me  by  my  hostess,  or  Philista,  as  the  students  say,  which 
I  eat  all  sole  alone.  Here  on  my  left  are  now  the  remains  of  my 
supper,  —  ah !  here  is  the  Philista  herself,  saluting  me  with  her 
*  Guten  Abend''  and  coming  for  the  dishes,  leaving  behind  the 
sugar,  butter,  etc.,  which  I  take  care  of  myself.  Just  think  of 


LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  77 

me  keeping  my  provisions  in  one  of  my  drawers  in  my  own  room  I 
Is  n't  it  a  funny  way  of  living  for  me !  She  brings  whatever  I 
order,  keeps  an  account,  and  brings  it  in  according  to  my  request 
every  Saturday  night.  And  for  the  curiosity  of  it,  what  do  you 
think  these  two  meals  have  cost  me  for  these  first  two  weeks? 
Just  about  $1.70  !  The  meals  are  as  good  as  I  could  wish,  coffee 
and  bread  and  butter,  and  sometimes,  when  I  am  disposed  to  be 
extravagant,  eggs  in  addition  for  breakfast,  and  cake  for  supper. 
This  is  certainly  cheap  living.  For  my  dinner,  at  the  first  hotel 
in  the  city,  I  pay  about  $4.32  per  month.  How  they  can  board 
people  at  this  rate,  I  can't  say.  For  my  lodgings,  a  study-room 
and  a  little  bedroom  attached  to  it,  I  pay  at  the  rate  of  $22.00 
per  year.  They  are  large  enough,  comfortable,  and  have  re- 
spectable furniture,  the  most  important  article  a  large,  easy  sofa, 
which  is  as  common  with  a  German  student  as  a  rocking-chair 
with  an  American.  There  is  also  a  large  sort  of  secretary  with 
drawers,  writing-desk  and  private  drawers,  and  book-case.  Besides, 
I  have  attendance,  making  bed,  cleaning  room,  running  errands, 
etc.,  included  in  the  above  sum.  I  am  living  very  busily  and 
very  happily;  never  more  so,  I  assure  you,  in  all  my  life.  I 
never  was  conscious  of  so  much  life,  life  of  every  kind,  as  now. 
I  will  tell  you  how  I  pass  my  day  at  present ;  you  don't  know  how 
systematic  I  am !  I  rise  at  six  o'clock,  make  my  toilet  (the  chief 
of  which  by  the  way  an  entire  ablution  from  head  to  foot)  ;  then 
a  short  walk,  which  I  accomplish  by  seven ;  then  from  seven  to 
eight,  my  coffee  and  reading  German  Bible ;  then  from  eight  to 
twelve,  study  either  in  my  room,  or  at  some  lecture,  or  with  my 
teacher,  —  in  any  case,  study  in  German ;  from  twelve  to  two, 
exercise  and  dinner ;  from  two  to  three,  don't  do  much  but  digest 
my  dinner,  talking,  lounging,  etc. ;  from  three  to  five,  study  German 
in  one  way  or  another;  from  five  to  seven,  walk  and  supper ;  from 
seven  till  I  go  to  bed,  study ;  retire  about  eleven  ;  about  going  to 
bed,  not  over  regular,  I  must  confess ;  once  I  pulled  my  feather 
bed  over  me,  that  is  to  say,  retired,  at  half  past  one.  My  Sundays 
thus  far  I  devote  to  the  German  Bible  in  the  main,  and  a  little 
English  reading  in  Henry  Martyn  and  Wilson's  "Sacra  Privata." 
I  have  had  some  most  delightful  Sunday  hours.  I  have  been 
enrolled,  and  received  my  matriculation,  as  a  regular  student  in 
the  University.  The  scene  with  the  Prorector  and  other  function- 
aries on  the  occasion  of  enrollment  was  quite  amusing.  They 
could  n't  speak  English  at  all,  and  I  German  but  precious  little. 


78  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

The  communication  was  partly  in  Latin,  partly  in  German,  and 
on  the  whole  went  off  quite  glibly,  —  at  any  rate  accomplished  the 
object.  At  present  I  attend  but  one  lecture,  Tholuck  on  the 
first  three  Gospels.  Until  I  have  made  more  headway  I  doubt 
whether  I  shall  attend  more,  —  perhaps,  in  the  course  of  a  month, 
one  other.  I  am  employed  on  the  German  now  with  all  my  might 
in  every  possible  way,  grammar,  reading,  lecture,  conversation, 
and  anything  and  everything  else.  Everything  and  everybody  I 
make  a  teacher,  besides  spending  an  hour  with  a  regular  instructor 
every  day.  I  have  become  acquainted  with  several  students,  with 
whom  I  negotiate  exchanges  of  English  for  German,  and  with  one 
I  have  a  walk  every  day  for  this  purpose.  I  wish  you  could  hear 
us  talk.  I  can  really  jabber  German  quite  decently.  They  tell 
me  I  can  talk  very  well  in  three  months.  I  begin  to  have  the 
vanity  to  believe  that  I  am  blessed  with  considerable  natural 
aptitude  in  catching  sounds,  and  in  general  of  acquiring  the 
knowledge  of  a  foreign  language.  It  fills  one  to  running  over 
with  enthusiasm  for  study  to  be  thus  situated ;  and  a  consciousness 
of  constant  progress,  in  spite  of  what  remains  to  be  done,  furnishes 
the  most  delicious  sensations  and  a  perpetual  source  of  stimulus. 
I  am  quite  certain  that  I  can  now  read  the  German  with  four 
times  the  facility  with  which  I  could  read  it  three  weeks  ago, 
when  I  commenced  at  Leipsic.  With  Tholuck  I  have  become 
quite  acquainted,  and  with  his  charming  little  wife.  The  latter 
took  the  trouble  to  inquire  about  lodgings  for  us,  which  were 
ready  as  soon  as  we  arrived  in  Halle.  She  talks  English  brokenly, 
but  in  a  most  fascinating  way.  She  has  more  of  what  the  French 
call  naivete  about  her  than  any  lady  I  ever  met  with.  She  is 
small,  well-formed,  a  fine  head,  black  hair  and  eyes,  Grecian  nose, 
and  beautiful  countenance ;  her  manners  utterly  destitute  of  affec- 
tation, easy  and  lady-like.  I  felt  when  I  was  talking  with  her 
the  other  evening,  as  we  were  there  at  tea,  as  if  I  were  with  an 
unsophisticated  girl.  I  am  not  sure  I  have  not  fallen  in  love 
from  first  sight,  the  first  day  I  was  in  Halle.  Tholuck  I  see 
mostly  in  his  walks,  —  have  had  long  walks  with  him.  He  is  a 
right  fine  fellow,  —  what  I  call  a  large-souled  man.  He  talks 
English  exceedingly  well.  I  inquired  with  interest  about  the 
other  Americans  who  have  been  here,  all  of  whom  he  well  re- 
membered. In  lecture  and  in  conversation,  his  countenance  some- 
times lights  up,  and  seems  to  undergo  an  actual  change ;  such  a 
brilliancy  of  light  playing  about  it ;  his  manners  very  kind  and 


LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  79 

familiar,  the  manner  of  a  warm,  good  heart,  —  not  a  tincture  of 
school  manners ;  in  dress  exceedingly  ordinary.  He  has  offered 
me  the  use  of  his  library  at  any  time,  also  to  walk,  to  talk  about 
anything,  and  I  will  avail  myself,  I  am  quite  sure,  to  the  full. 

We  have  had  terrible  rumors  about  McLeod,  that  he  was  con- 
demned, and  war  was  inevitable  !  but  I  did  n't  believe  a  word  of 
it.  It  cannot  be  —  will  not  be  —  that  England  and  the  United 
States  will  go  to  war !  Horrible !  Pray  stop  that  border  war- 
fare, Mr.  President  Tyler,  and  manage  in  some  way  to  get  that 
McLeod  man  out  of  State  hands  into  the  power  of  the  General 
Government,  and  then  Mr.  Secretary  Webster  and  Sir  Robert 
Peel  will  settle  the  matter  amicably  and  speedily.  Enough,  this, 
for  politics.  You  must  all  be  in  a  dreadful  political  condition  in 
the  United  States,  with  this  matter  in  addition  to  the  party  poli- 
tics. Here,  under  this  despotic  monarchy,  we  live  quiet  as  a 
summer's  eve.  Yet  I  am  more  a  democrat  than  ever. 

HALLE,     ITS     PROFESSORS.  REFORMATION      CELEBRATION     AND 

SUNDAY    BREAKING.  —  ORIGIN   OF    A    GERMAN   BAPTIST   CHURCH. 

(A  Letter  to  "  The  Watchman:') 

Halle,  November  19,  1841.  In  Halle  there  is  but  little  that  is 
worthy  of  remark,  except  the  University,  and  I  have  been  here 
too  short  a  time  to  venture  at  present  upon  any  particular  account 
of  this.  The  winter  semester  has  already  commenced.  Tholuck 
is  lecturing  upon  the  first  three  Gospels,  and  also  upon  Christian 
Ethics.  In  ethics,  by  the  way,  he  recently  remarked  to  us  in  con- 
versation that  he  had  found  Wayland's  "  Moral  Science  "  a  very 
valuable  work.  He  is  also  intending  to  get  out  this  winter  a  new 
edition  of  his  work  on  Romans.  Gesenius  is  lecturing  upon 
Genesis.  He  is  just  now  engaged  with  a  new  edition  of  his  He- 
brew grammar,  and  is  still  constantly  occupied  in  completing  his 
Hebrew  Thesaurus.  Bernhardy  seems  to  be  considered  the  most 
distinguished  man  here  in  the  classics.  He  has  published  a  work 
on  the  history  of  Greek  literature,  in  connection  with  which  he  is 
now  lecturing,  and  also  more  recently  a  work  on  Greek  syntax, 
which  last,  if  it  at  all  corresponds  with  the  accounts  given  of  it, 
would  supply  a  desideratum  with  us,  if  it  were  translated.  Halle 
is  chiefly  distinguished,  as  it  always  has  been,  in  the  department 
of  theology.  In  the  present  chaotic  condition  of  German  phi- 
losophy and  theology,  there  are  representatives  here  of  all  the 
various  opinions  and  systems. 


80  LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

Since  we  have  been  here,  there  has  been  a  centennial  celebration 
of  the  introduction  of  the  Reformation  in  Halle.  It  occurred  on 
Sunday,  October  31.  An  interesting  historical  address  was  deliv- 
ered by  Professor  Tholuck,  in  the  University  Aula,  after  which, 
Professor  Wegscheider,  the  present  dean  of  the  theological  fac- 
ulty, pronounced  a  Latin  oration,  and  at  the  close  of  the  services 
made  an  announcement  of  honorary  degrees  conferred  by  the  Uni- 
versity. Among  these  was  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Theology,  con- 
ferred upon  Dr.  Robinson  of  New  York.  It  is  a  fact  worthy  of 
mention,  and  which  I  may  state  upon  the  authority  of  Dr.  Tho- 
luck, that  this  honor  has  never  been  conferred  by  this  University 
upon  an  Englishman,  and  now  for  the  first  time  upon  an  Amer- 
ican. One  must  have  a  very  different  view  of  the  Sabbath  from 
that  which  prevails  in  New  England,  to  perceive  the  propriety 
of  these  last  services  upon  that  day.  A  Latin  oration  on  the  Sab- 
bath !  Especially,  as  is  not  uncommon  with  such  performances, 
an  oration  de  omnibus  rebus,  et  quibusdam  aliisl 

A  few  days  ago  we  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  our  missionary, 
Mr.  Oncken,  who  passed  through  Halle,  on  his  way  to  Hamburg. 
We  had  a  delightful  interview  with  him,  and  were  glad  to  learn 
that  he  had  successfully  accomplished  the  objects  of  his  tour.  In 
Memel  he  baptized  twenty-nine  persons  and  organized  a  church. 
Among  the  persons  baptized  was  an  uncle  of  Rev.  Dr.  Hague  of 
Boston.  This  gentleman  is  a  native  of  England,  but  for  many 
years  has  resided  in  Memel.  It  was  through  his  instrumentality 
that  this  Baptist  church  has  been  formed.  Until  recently,  these 
Christians,  while  they  held  to  the  baptism  of  none  but  adults,  still 
practiced  sprinkling ;  and  in  consequence  of  these  views  they  had 
all  of  them  been  re-sprinkled.  Mr.  Hague  convinced  them  of 
their  error  in  regard  to  the  mode  of  baptism,  and  it  was  thus 
through  his  means  that  Mr.  Oncken  visited  them  and  organized 
the  church.  But  it  is  a  matter  of  more  importance  than  any 
change  of  views  upon  baptism,  that  these  persons  are  earnest  and 
devoted  Christians,  and  are  earnestly  striving  in  the  midst  of 
many  obstacles  for  the  promotion  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 

COMMENTS  UPON  GESENIUS,  WEGSCHEIDER,  AND  ONCKEN.  — 
GREAT  BRITAIN'S  REFUSAL  TO  MAKE  HER  POSTAL  CHARGES 
REASONABLE. 

Halle,  November  25,  1841.  I  was  agreeably  surprised,  in 
calling  upon  that  great  Hebrew  giant,  Gesenius,  to  see  on  his 


LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  81 

table  a  copy  of  Gould  &  Lincoln's  "  Conant's  Translation."  It 
looked  odd  to  see  it  in  such  a  place.  The  old  fellow  is  a  good- 
natured,  gentlemanly  fellow  as  you  ever  saw.  He  talks  English 
somewhat,  but  he  certainly  talks  German  much  better.  We 
found  him  quite  deshabille,  with  his  coffee  on  the  table,  himself 
in  slippers,  easy  dress,  neck  wonderfully  loose,  and  hard  at  it  in 
study ;  great  books  lying  about  open  upon  his  table,  and  every- 
thing seeming  like  the  den  of  a  lion  in  science.  He  loves  to 
laugh,  and  to  laugh  with  all  his  might.  He  talks  about  Hebrew 
and  about  his  books  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  a  young  man ; 
remembered  Sears  very  well ;  inquired  about  Conant,  Stuai-t, 
Robinson,  and  some  others.  He  has  a  pleasant,  perhaps  a  little 
roguish  expression  of  countenance,  and  in  manner  lively,  and 
every  way  gentlemanly.  I  went  to  see  Wegscheider,  too,  the 
other  day  ;  went  as  a  student,  to  get  his  signature  as  dean  of  the 
theological  faculty,  to  my  Student's  Album,  as  they  call  it,  a 
book  for  the  insertion  of  courses  of  lectures,  etc.  He  lives  a  little 
way  out  of  town,  on  a  place  belonging  to  himself  which  is  quite 
princely  for  Halle.  I  found  him  in  his  garden.  His  English 
was  just  about  as  good  as  my  German,  and  with  the  two  we  made 
out  to  talk  sufficiently  for  the  business.  He  is  very  plain  in 
dress  and  manners,  and  seems  rather  stiff  and  precise.  He  is  one 
of  the  old  Rationalists,  and  is,  moreover,  an  old  sinner.  Gesenius 
is  one  of  the  most  attractive  lecturers  I  have  heard  ;  his  enuncia- 
tion is  very  distinct,  his  tones  very  fine,  and  his  whole  manner 
full  of  vivacity.  But  he  is  too  much  given  to  trifling  and  joking ; 
he  does  n't  make  anything  of  cracking  his  jokes,  and  sometimes 
bad  ones,  too,  over  the  Bible  with  eighty  or  ninety  students  before 
him.  He  is  another  old  sinner.  It 's  too  bad  for  such  fellows  so 
to  abuse  their  talents  and  learning.  Oncken  has  been  here.  I 
had  a  real  good  interview  and  was  delighted  with  the  man.  He 
is  a  whole-souled,  energetic,  Christian  man.  His  conversation  is 
instructive  and  lively,  inclined  to  be  witty,  and  gives  evidence  of 
a  well-informed  and  very  active  mind.  He  speaks  English  exceed- 
ingly well.  His  tour  was  very  successful  in  all  respects.  I  got  a 
line  from  the  Barings,  with  my  last  letters,  stating  that  they  had 
received  a  package  on  which  there  was  a  postage  (English)  of 
nearly  £1,  and  asking  if  they  should  pay  it  and  forward  it.  Of 
course  I  told  them  I  could  n't  pay  so  much,  and  they  must  leave 
it  in  the  post-office.  The  papers  you  sent  with  your  letter  of 
October  first  (two  packages)  had  upon  them  an  accumulated 


82  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

postage  of  about  $20.00.  Just  think  of  $20.00  for  nine  Ameri- 
can newspapers !  I  told  them  I  would  give  them  two  Prussian 
thalers,  about  $1.50,  for  the  lot,  but  they  would  n't  take  it,  and 
so  they  got  nothing,  and  the  papers  were  left.  It  was  too  bad, 
abominable,  that  I  couldn't  have  them.  I  wish  I  had  offered 
more. 

A    CONCERT   BY   LISZT,  AND  A   PROPHETIC  COMMENT   UPON   AMERI- 
CAN   SLAVERY. 

Halle,  January  23,  1842.  I  attended  a  concert  lately  given  by 
Liszt,  a  celebrated  composer  and  pianoforte  player.  He  plays 
with  exceeding  taste ;  a  very  nice  appreciation  of  sentiment  in  mu- 
sic. In  particular  he  sometimes  gave  the  notes  such  a  softness, 
a  dying-away-ness,  as  to  make  one  feel  they  were  endowed  with 
life.  It  seemed  as  though  you  were  drinking  in  the  spirit-lan- 
guage of  some  quite  ethereal  being.  What  a  wondrous  thing  in 
all  this  our  wondrous  life  is  music ! 

This  week  is  to  come  off  a  dinner  in  Halle,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  christening  of  the  baby  Prince  of  Wales.  .  .  .  With  our 
present  relations  to  England  in  regard  to  the  right  of  search, 
Northeast  boundary,  etc.,  which  Lord  Ashburton  is  coming  among 
you  to  settle,  it  would  be  a  delicate  matter  to  say  much  on  such 
an  occasion.  That  confounded  slavery  business  seems  destined  to 
make  most  serious  trouble,  and  if  it  does  not  sooner  or  later  lead 
to  war  and  dissolution  of  the  Union,  I  think  we  may  thank  the 
special  interposition  of  Providence.  I  see  that  a  new  item  of  trou- 
ble has  arisen  in  relation  to  a  cargo  of  slaves  who  mutinied,  killed 
the  owner  and  captain,  and  went  into  Nassau,  and  there  were, 
most  of  them,  set  free.  Of  course  the  Southern  slaveholders  are 
greatly  enraged.  I  see,  too,  that  some  proposal  is  to  be  made  for 
the  admission  of  Texas  into  the  Union.  I  hope  not,  I  am  sure. 
As  an  American  I  should  be  ashamed  to  acknowledge  myself  a 
fellow-countryman  of  such  a  race  of  villains  and  cutthroats. 

A    TRIBUTE    TO    THOLUCK's    PERSONAL     CHARACTER.  —  THE     UN- 
AMERICAN   CONDITION    OF   GERMAN   WOMEN. 

Halle,  February  26,  1842.  I  wish  we  had  such  professors  as 
Tholuck  among  us,  who  felt  so  much  interested  in  young  men, 
could  inspire  in  them  so  much  confidence,  enter  into  their  feelings 
and  wants,  sympathize  with  them,  and  every  way  strive  to  do  them 
good.  He  is  the  sort  of  a  man  in  whom  I  could  feel  perfectly 


LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  83 

willing  and  secure  to  confide  all  personal  doubts,  trials,  and  diffi- 
culties ;  such  a  one  as  a  young  man  in  study  always  yearns  to  find, 
but  is  nearly  always  disappointed.  And  then,  too,  he  is  so  cheer- 
ful, so  full  of  playful,  childlike  kindness  and  love  ;  shows  ever  so 
much  of  the  brother  and  the  friend,  while  at  the  same  time  he 
tells  you  more  than  you  can  possibly  remember ;  impresses  you 
with  a  conviction  that  you  are  in  contact  with  a  great  mind,  and 
inspires  you  with  enthusiasm  for  all  that  is  beautiful  and  great 
and  good.  It  is  a  great  blessing  to  be  near  such  a  spirit  as  his. 
He  has  already  given  me  many  impressions  I  shall  never  lose. 
There  is  no  other  professor  whom  I  care  to  see  so  much  of,  and 
from  whom,  both  in  private  and  public,  I  get  so  much  good.  He 
is  as  able  and  learned  as  any  of  them,  superior  to  most,  indeed 
on  the  whole  the  most  conspicuous  man  here,  and  still  evangelical 
and  truly  pious.  Such  a  combination  in  a  German  professor  is 
very  rare.  Then  he  knows,  better  than  any  man  here,  the  state 
of  opinion  and  feeling,  and  society  in  general,  in  England  and 
America,  and  is  extremely  interested  in  all  the  movements  there. 
In  speaking  of  men  and  books  he  frequently  speaks  of  their  rela- 
tion to  our  country.  "  Such  a  book,"  he  will  say,  "  would  suit 
your  people  very  well ;  such  a  man's  spirit  and  writings  are  not 
adapted  to  your  state  of  society."  In  all  respects  he  is  probably 
to  me  a  more  useful  man  than  any  other  I  could  find  in  Germany. 
Women  seem  to  be  brought  up  here  to  all  sorts  of  work,  such 
as  dragging  carts  through  the  streets,  mud-scows  through  the 
water,  cutting  up  ice  in  the  street  with  a  pick-axe,  and  other  such 
feminine  employments.  I  was  walking  along  the  banks  of  the 
Saale  and  saw  a  man  sitting  quietly  at  the  helm  of  a  clumsy 
craft  in  the  river,  and  a  woman  on  a  footpath  on  the  bank,  with  a 
rope  tied  round  her  waist,  hauling  the  craft  and  man  along 
through  the  water.  Then  in  the  streets  one  sees  women  pulling 
along  heavy  carts  and  the  man  behind  or  one  side,  ostensibly  push- 
ing and  helping,  but  really  exercising  a  kind  of  superintendence, 
and  seeing  that  the  things  don't  fall  off.  Then  they  lug  im- 
mense loaded  baskets  on  their  backs,  containing  country  produce, 
or  provisions,  and  all  sorts  of  things.  This  last  is  the  most  com- 
mon sight  in  the  streets.  I  have  seen  old  women  with  baskets  on 
their  backs  that  made  them  bend  double. 


84  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

From  "  The   Watchman"  September  16,  1842. 

(We  have  been  so  much  pleased  with  the  perusal  of  a  private  letter  from 
a  young  friend  of  ours,  now  a  student  in  Germany,  that  we  venture  to 
present  some  extracts  to  our  readers.  The  picture  which  it  presents  of 
the  learned  Professor  Tholuck,  in  the  free  intercourse  of  private  life,  and 
amid  the  varied  scenes  of  a  journey,  on  which  he  was  accompanied  by 
the  writer,  is  highly  interesting.) 

Our  arrangements  for  traveling  are  admirable.  We  have  a 
large  two-horse  barouche  for  the  whole  route,  hired  in  Halle,  and 
are  four  in  number,  there  being  besides  Professor  Tholuck  and  my- 
self, his  amanuensis  and  an  Americo-German  student  from  Penn- 
sylvania. We  can  travel  just  as  fast,  and  just  when,  and  just  how 
we  please,  making  digressions  sometimes  on  railroad  or  steamboat, 
or  the  best  part  on  foot,  sending,  in  such  cases,  the  driver  with 
most  of  our  baggage  on  before.  We  have  thus  far  traveled  about 
forty  English  miles  a  day.  Professor  Tholuck's  health  is  very 
delicate,  —  indeed,  it  always  is,  —  his  nerves  extremely  irritable, 
and  his  whole  frame  subject  to  pain  and  disorder.  He  has  at  best 
but  a  shattered,  feeble  constitution. 

On  the  journey  it  is  especially  difficult  for  him  to  find  a  suffi- 
ciently quiet  sleeping-room.  It  is  impossible  for  him  to  sleep 
until  every  sound  in  the  house  is  hushed,  and  in  the  night  the  least 
noise  in  his  vicinity  awakes  him.  I  never  knew  a  man  so  pecu- 
liar in  this  respect,  so  excessively  sensitive.  Then  he  has  a  long- 
standing bowel  complaint  from  which  he  suffers,  often  intensely. 
And  yet  he  is  the  soul  of  our  party,  the  most  lively,  entertaining 
of  us  all.  Such  an  activity  of  soul,  such  wondrous  intellectual 
life  !  He  walks  more  than  all  of  us  together,  up  hill  and  down, 
and  drives  ahead  like  one  possessed  ;  and  then  when  he  gets  into 
the  carriage  again,  apparently  exhausted,  some  question  or  remark 
will  put  his  spirit  into  action,  and  he  will  be  as  full  of  life  as  if 
he  was  in  perfect  health  and  strength.  He  has  talked  with  us 
several  times  in  answer  to  our  inquiries  about  his  early  life,  his 
studies,  etc.,  and  has  given  me  enough  to  think  of  for  a  year. 
One  day  he  was  so  unwell  that  he  said  he  must  go  back,  and  we 
made  arrangements  accordingly  as  soon  as  possible,  but  he  recov- 
ered and  felt  better,  and  we  went  on,  much  to  our  rejoicing.  He 
is  so  kind  and  affectionate,  so  brotherly,  I  verily  love,  while  I 
admire  him.  I  think  now  he  will  make  the  whole  tour  with  us. 
For  the  last  two  or  three  days  we  were  on  Catholic  soil.  The 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  85 

towns  and  villages,  the  roadside,  exhibit  in  the  statues  of  the 
Saviour,  Virgin  Mary,  saints,  etc.,  and  crosses  without  number, 
the  peculiarities  of  Catholic  countries.  I  must  confess  that  these 
many  Christian  emblems  and  outward  signs  of  Christianity  did 
not  affect  me  disagreeably.  The  cross  teaches  in  itself  the  charac- 
ter and  contents  of  Christianity,  and  to  me  there  is  something 
extremely  interesting  to  meet  with  it  thus  everywhere  in  a  Chris- 
tian land. 

Heidelberg  is  a  charming  place,  thrown  snugly  into  the  valley 
of  the  beautiful  Neckar,  directly  on  its  left  bank,  on  a  narrow 
strip  of  land  between  the  river  and  a  high  range,  on  a  rugged 
rocky  part  of  which  yet  hang  the  remains  of  the  old  castle. 
These  old  walls  and  towers  literally  hang  from  the  rocky  range 
just  above  the  city,  and  as  I  look  up  to  them  from  our  hotel,  I 
can  hardly  refrain  from  bowing  with  reverence  to  their  antiquity 
and  grandeur.  I  went  all  over  the  ruins  early  this  morning. 
The  tower  was  undermined  and  blown  up  by  the  French,  but  its 
walls  were  so  thick  and  massive  —  some  twenty  feet  or  more  —  that 
instead  of  being  thrown  to  pieces  and  scattered  in  the  air,  the  one 
half  of  it  slid  down  into  the  ditch  below,  and  there  now  remains. 
These  old  ivy-covered  ruins  have  made  an  impression  upon  me 
that  can  never  leave  me.  The  University  here  is  less  celebrated 
for  theology  than  law  or  medicine,  there  being  in  all  only  seven- 
teen theological  students.  There  are,  however,  two  or  three  very 
distinguished  men  in  the  theological  faculty,  —  Ullmann,  Um- 
breit,  and  Rothe.  The  students  in  general  study  but  little,  but 
drink  beer,  smoke  tobacco,  and  fence,  and  fight  duels  at  a  great 
rate. 

BERLIN    AND    ITS    UNIVERSITY. A   TORCH-LIGHT     SERENADE    TO 

NEANDER.  — •  HEGEL  AND  SCHELLING  VS.  MORALS  AND  RELIGION. 

(A  Letter  to  "  The  Watchman."} 

Berlin,  February  5,  1843.  I  will  cheerfully  comply  with  your 
request,  so  far  as  I  am  able,  and  try  to  give  you  a  glance  or  two 
into  the  life  and  present  goings  on  of  this  Prussian  metropolis. 
Of  its  various  attractions,  however,  of  its  galleries,  its  collections 
of  science  and  of  art,  and  of  the  many  other  things  that  swell  the 
catalogue  of  its  lions,  I  must  reserve  all  account  till  another  time ; 
for,  indeed,  I  cannot  speak  of  the  half  of  them  from  personal 
observation,  having  as  yet  done  but  little  here  in  the  way  of  sight- 


80  LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

seeing.  But  one  thing,  in  passing,  I  can  tell  you,  and  with  all 
seriousness,  as  a  remarkable  fact  which  has  forced  itself  upon  nay 
notice  nearly  every  day  during  the  four  months  that  I  have  spent 
here,  and  that  is  that  Berlin  is  famous,  at  least  during  the  winter, 
for  a  plentiful  scarcity  of  sunshine  and  pleasant  weather.  We 
have  nothing  at  all  like  winter,  except  a  few  cold  days  at  the  end 
of  November,  and  since  that  time,  in  two  instances,  a  very  incon- 
siderable fall  of  snow.  There  has  been  a  singular  continuity  of 
just  such  disagreeable  weather  as  that  which  hangs  about  New 
England  so  tenaciously  in  the  spring,  and  not  at  all  inferior  in  all 
its.  varieties,  Boston  and  Newport  fogs  scarcely  excepted.  Last 
week  we  had  a  lucid  interval  of  two  days  and  a  half,  and  the 
people  thronged  out  en  masse  to  greet  the  glad,  returning  beams 
of  the  sun,  and  the  splendid  Broadway  of  Berlin,  and  the  mag- 
nificent adjoining  park,  glittering  with  gay  equipages  and  joyous 
faces.  Our  editors  tell  us  that  the  fact  about  the  weather  is  not 
peculiar  to  Berlin,  but  is  more  or  less  common  all  over  Europe  ; 
and  if  this  be  so,  we  may  be  sure  that  some  learned  and  acute 
German  will  erelong  make  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  whole 
matter,  and  furnish  the  scientific  world  with  some  luminous  me- 
teorological speculations,  preceded  of  course  by  an  exhaustive  his- 
torical introduction,  containing  all  the  phenomena  touching  the 
subject,  from  the  earliest  authentic  records  down  to  the  present 
time.  Notwithstanding,  the  city  has  not  been  at  all  wanting  in 
the  usual  gayety  of  the  winter  season,  and  has  been  visited  by  a 
more  than  ordinary  number  of  strangers,  and  among  them  per- 
sonages of  great  distinction,  kings  and  their  titled  representatives, 
and  German  princes  and  princesses  not  a  few.  The  lovers  of 
musical  art  are  just  now  favored  with  the  presence  of  some  of  the 
most  distinguished  ornaments  of  that  art  in  Europe ;  among  them 
Mendelssohn,  Meyerbeer  the  prince  of  living  German  composers, 
Rubini  the  celebrated  tenor,  and  the  pianist  Liszt  of  whose  praise 
all  Germany  is  full,  and  who  created  an  enthusiasm  here  last  win- 
ter not  surpassed  even  by  that  which  has  been  awakened  in  Amer- 
ica in  late  years  by  the  performances  of  certain  European  artists. 
Berlin  is,  on  all  accounts,  a  place  of  great  interest.  The  capi- 
tal city  of  by  far  the  most  important  kingdom  in  the  German 
confederation,  the  residence  of  the  ablest  European  sovereign 
(unless,  perhaps,  we  except  Louis  Philippe,  King  of  the  French), 
and  the  seat  of  the  first  German  university,  it  is  a  central  source 
of  influence  to  Europe  and  the  world.  The  policy  of  the  present 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  87 

king,  for  the  fullest  development  of  the  resources  of  the  country 
and  the  security  and  elevation  of  the  state,  has  attracted  from  the 
first  the  observation  and  interest  of  intelligent  and  thinking  men 
in  Europe  ;  and  while  it  is  naturally  a  matter  of  divided  opinion 
in  its  bearings  upon  free  institutions,  has  yet  made  but  one  impres- 
sion in  relation  to  its  sagacious  and  comprehensive  character,  and 
has  already  won  for  the  monarch  a  high  intellectual  reputation. 
On  no  object  has  he  bestowed  a  more  generous  and  enlightened 
interest  than  on  the  University  in  his  capital.  It  has  been  his 
cherished  plan  from  the  period  of  his  accession,  to  gather  around 
him  here  the  brightest  luminaries  of  science  and  literature  in  Ger- 
many, and  to  secure  to  this  institution,  established  in  1810  by  his 
royal  father,  the  first  rank  among  German  universities.  In  pro- 
moting this  object,  he  has  spared  no  pains  nor  expense.  He  has 
laid  contributions  upon  all  parts  of  Germany,  has  selected  out 
from  the  faculties  of  other  institutions  its  most  distinguished 
members,  occasioning  thereby,  especially  in  case  of  those  in  the 
smaller  states,  an  irreparable  loss ;  so  that  this  University,  though 
one  of  the  youngest  in  the  country,  has  become  the  very  focus  of 
German  literary  influence,  and  can  boast  a  more  brilliant  constel- 
lation of  genius  and  learning  than  any  other  in  Europe.  It  is 
indeed  a  magnificent  instance  of  a  university,  in  the  original  and 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  furnishing  the  utmost  facilities  of 
preparation  in  teachers,  libraries,  and  apparatus  for  the  various 
branches  of  professional  and  literary  life.  I  venture  to  say  that 
there  is  no  subject  within  the  whole  range  of  human  knowledge, 
which  one  may  desire  to  make  a  matter  of  investigation,  for  the 
prosecution  of  which  he  cannot  find  here  the  amplest  arrange- 
ments. The  catalogue  of  lectures  is  truly  a  curiosity  to  one  who 
has  never  before  seen  such  a  document.  It  contains  the  pro- 
posed lectures  of  some  one  hundred  and  fifty  teachers,  professors 
ordinarii^  extraordinarily  and  the  privatim  docentes,  belonging 
to  the  four  faculties,  and  not  only  embraces  all  the  subjects  con- 
nected with  the  regular  professions,  and  with  philosophy  and  phi- 
lology, but  covers  the  whole  ground  of  polite  and  general  litera- 
ture, of  abstruse  and  curious  learning ;  in  short,  includes  all  the 
topics  that  the  human  mind  can  think  of,  or  dream  about,  or  busy 
itself  with  in  any  possible  way.  The  number  of  students  during 
the  present  winter  semester  is  2,157,  and  of  these  the  largest 
number  is  in  the  faculty  of  law,  the  next  largest  in  the  philosoph- 
ical faculty,  and  the  smallest  in  the  faculty  of  medicine.  The 


88  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

faculties  of  law  and  of  medicine  have  long  been  superior  to  those 
of  any  other  German  university.  The  place  of  von  Savigny,  in 
the  former,  the  first  German  jurist  and  now  Prussian  minister, 
has  been  supplied  by  Puchta,  formerly  of  Leipsic,  who  is  lecturing 
here  this  winter  for  the  first  time  to  a  crowded  auditory.  The 
various  divisions  of  the  philosophical  faculty  are  rich  in  great 
names.  Among  them  are  Schelling  and  Steffens  in  philosophy  ; 
in  classical  philology,  Bekker,  Boeckh,  Zumpt,  and  Franz ;  in 
history,  Ranke  and  Raumer,  the  brothers  Jacob  and  William 
Grimm,  the  pioneers  and  still  diligent  laborers  in  the  investiga- 
tion and  study  of  the  Old  German ;  Charles  Ritter,  in  universal 
geography  ;  Encke,  in  astronomy ;  Bopp,  in  Sanskrit,  and  many 
others  whom  I  cannot  mention.  The  theological  faculty  is  better 
filled  than  any  other  in  Germany,  unless  that  of  Halle  form  an 
exception,  which,  however,  in  the  death  of  the  lamented  Gesenius, 
has  lost  one  of  its  ablest  members.  Theremin  and  Strauss,  both 
of  them  court  -  preachers,  and  the  former  the  most  eloquent  of 
German  divines,  lecture  upon  homiletics  and  pastoral  theology. 
Marheineke,  the  veteran  disciple  of  Hegel,  still  adheres  to  the 
Hegelian  philosophy,  and  is  lecturing  this  winter  upon  the  im- 
portance of  its  introduction  into  theology.  Twesten  is  favorably 
known  in  the  department  of  systematic  theology,  two  volumes  of 
his  works  on  this  subject  having  been  already  some  time  before  the 
public.  He  holds  the  place  formerly  occupied  by  Schleiermacher, 
and  is  one  of  the  warmest  admirers  of  the  genius  and  religious 
spirit  of  that  great  man,  and  indeed  has  formed  his  own  theologi- 
cal system  upon  the  basis  of  that  of  Schleiermacher,  though  free 
from  his  peculiar,  I  may  say  pantheistic,  tendencies,  and  adhering 
more  closely  than  he  to  the  Bible  as  an  objective  standard  of 
faith.  Hengstenberg  has  long  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  as  an 
Oriental  scholar  and  an  interpreter  of  the  Old  Testament,  and 
occupies  a  more  conspicuous,  unequivocal  position  as  a  super- 
naturalist  and  a  champion  of  evangelical  Christianity  than  any 
other  German  theologian.  Neander  is  as  well  known  in  the 
United  States  as  in  Germany  as  the  first  ecclesiastic  historian  of 
the  age,  and  as  a  lecturer  with  scarcely  an  equal  in  the  deport- 
ment of  New  Testament  exegesis.  I  need  not  say  a  word  in  illus- 
tration of  his  immense  learning  and  his  warm  Christian  spirit. 
He  lectures  this  winter  three  hours  a  day  in  succession,  on  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  on  the  History  of  Christian  Doctrines, 
and  on  Church  History,  before  a  more  crowded  auditory  than  any 


LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  89 

other  professor  in  the  University.  The  recent  recurrence  of  his 
birthday  gave  occasion  to  a  demonstration  of  the  esteem  and 
honor  of  his  many  students,  consisting  of  a  Fackel  Zug,  a  torch 
procession,  a  serenade,  and  a  present  of  a  silver  cup.  The  scene 
on  the  evening  of  this  occasion  was  one  of  no  little  outward  pomp 
and  display.  A  procession  of  some  300  students,  each  carrying 
a  huge  blazing  torch,  preceded  by  a  band  of  music,  and  attended 
by  mounted  guards,  with  an  open  carriage  and  four  containing 
the  committee  deputed  to  deliver  the  address  and  present,  and 
followed  by  a  large  portion  of  the  300,000  inhabitants  of  Berlin, 
it  was  on  the  whole  a  very  brilliant  and  exciting  affair.  Ere  the 
procession  reached  Neander's  house,  the  street  was  thronged  far 
and  near,  and  the  torches  and  the  guards  were  of  essential  aid  in 
forcing  a  passage.  The  committee  then  alighted,  and  went  up  to 
Neander's  apartments,  and  meantime  the  dense  crowd  was  hushed 
to  silence  and  order  by  low  and  gentle  music  from  the  band. 
Soon  Neander  appeared  at  the  open  window  above  and  addressed 
the  students.  He  had  an  audience  of  thousands  before  him,  repre- 
senting all  ranks  of  society  in  Berlin.  The  remarks,  few  and 
simple,  came  warm  and  fresh  from  the  heart  of  the  speaker,  and 
illustrated  the  Christian  humility  and  earnestness  of  his  character. 
He  expressed  his  sense  of  unworthiness  of  such  a  manifestation 
of  honor  and  love,  attributed  it  less  to  himself  than  to  the  sacred 
cause  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life  and  labors,  and  exhorted 
his  students  to  be  true  to  themselves  as  Christians,  to  be  true  to 
the  principles  and  doctrines  of  evangelical  Christianity.  After 
long  and  loud  acclamations  of  "Long  live  Neander!  "  the  students 
sang  some  verses  from  the  favorite  Latin  song  "  Gaudeamus,"  and 
then  retired  from  the  spot.  They  then  moved  off  in  procession  to 
the  military  Parade-Place,  where  they  flung  their  torches  into  one 
huge,  smoking  pile,  and  after  gathering  about  it  and  finishing  the 
above  song  and  joining  in  some  hearty  shoutings  of  "  Academic 
Freedom,"  the  watchword  of  German  students,  quietly  dispersed, 
and  left  the  ground  to  the  police  and  the  rabble. 

The  at  length  decided  settlement  of  Schelling  here  and  his  lec- 
tures form  the  only  feature  of  peculiar  interest  in  the  life  of  the 
University  during  the  present  semester.  His  position  is  a  novel 
and  important  one.  After  half  a  century  of  labor  in  the  field  of 
philosophy,  he  appears  in  Berlin,  and  commences  his  course  anew 
with  all  the  zeal  of  youth,  and  at  once  the  successor  of  Hegel  in 
his  present  chair,  and  his  predecessor  in  the  line  of  German  phi- 


90  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

losophical  masters,  is  now  engaged  in  combating  the  prevailing 
Hegelian  system,  and  attempting  to  introduce  a  new  era  in  Ger- 
man philosophy.  There  is  but  little  probability  that  he  will  fur- 
nish the  world  with  a  Christian  philosophy,  but  he  will  doubtless 
exert  here  a  salutary  negative  influence  in  loosening  the  strong- 
hold of  the  now  unquestionably  pantheistic  and  unchristian  sys- 
tem of  Hegel.  I  do  not  speak  at  random  nor  utter  any  language 
of  cant ;  I  have  given  some  attention  to  the  bearings  of  this  phi- 
losophy upon  Christianity,  and  I  am  sure  it  is  little  to  say  that  the 
believer  in  Jesus  must  look  elsewhere  for  a  solution  of  the  prob- 
lems of  life,  and  for  an  explanation  of  the  sacred  mysteries  of  his 
faith.  It  is  utterly  at  variance  with  the  specific  claims  and  un- 
questioned truths  of  Christianity,  and  is  quite  foreign  to  the  facts 
of  Christian  consciousness  and  experience.  It  takes  quite  too 
lofty  a  position,  and  strides  on  in  its  high  path  of  thought,  with 
a  confident  air  and  a  proud  step,  but  ill  adapted  to  the  relations 
of  the  world  in  which  we  live,  to  the  condition  and  character  of  a 
race  of  beings,  high  indeed  in  its  origin,  high  in  its  destiny,  but 
alas,  in  its  present  state,  at  best  but  dependent,  weak,  and  sinful. 
If  we  would  adopt  its  results  we  must  shut  our  eyes  to  the  imper- 
fection and  misery  that  sadden  and  darken  human  life  and  society. 
We  must  forget  what  we  have  felt  within  us,  what  we  know  of 
ourselves,  must  learn  to  look  upon  the  spiritual  facts  that  lie  in 
the  depths  of  our  souls,  our  consciousness  of  ignorance  and  mani- 
fold want,  our  sense  of  sin  and  guilt,  and  need  of  reconciliation 
with  God,  as  weak  prejudices  of  childhood  and  the  fictions  of  the 
nursery,  utterly  unbecoming  a  mature  and  dignified  manliness. 
The  point  of  departure  of  this  system  is  the  reason,  its  method 
the  development  of  all  truth  out  of  itself  by  a  logical  necessity  of 
thought ;  and  its  final  results  are  an  utter  confusion  and  merging 
of  the  Infinite  and  the  finite,  the  Divine  and  the  human,  reason 
and  revelation.  Strauss  has  applied  this  system  to  systematic  the- 
ology in  his  philosophical "  Dogmatik,"  and  during  the  process  has 
not  only  done  away  with  all  Christian  theology,  but  even  with  the 
existence  of  theology  itself  as  a  science ;  and  the  writers  of  the 
school  who  compose  the  class  that  go  by  the  name  of  the  "  Young 
Germany  "  are  now  working  out  its  pernicious  results  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Morals  with  a  most  terrific  activity,  as  if  they  had  sold 
themselves  with  a  clear  consciousness  to  the  prince  of  darkness 
and  were  bent  upon  turning  the  earth  into  an  unbroken,  frightful 
waste  of  wickedness.  Amid  the  incessant  changes  and  the  chaotic 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  91 

controversy  of  human  philosophy,  the  Christian  may  well  turn 
with  quickened  and  more  earnest  faith  to  the  teachings  of  Him 
who  said  of  himself,  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life. 

GERMAN   AND    AMERICAN   UNIVERSITIES. 

(A  Letter  to  "The  Watchman"} 

Gotha,  September  8,  1843.  I  arrived  here  yesterday  on  my 
way  from  Berlin  to  the  Rhine,  by  the  usual  post  route  through 
Halle,  Weimar,  and  Erfurt. 

I  have  remained  a  day  in  Gotha,  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  vis- 
iting its  ancient  Gymnasium  and  forming  a  personal  acquaintance 
with  some  of  the  professors.  Through  the  kindness  of  one  of  the 
gentlemen  I  was  enabled  to  visit  in  his  study  the  venerable  Fred- 
eric Jacobs,  the  veteran  gymnasial  teacher  and  philologian,  so  well 
known  among  us  by  the  many  editions  and  extensive  use  of  his 
Greek  reader.  He  was  dictating  a  letter  to  his  secretary  as  we 
came  in,  but  laid  it  aside,  and  received  us  with  extreme  kindness 
and  cordiality.  On  learning  from  my  friend,  who  was  with  me, 
my  strong  desire  to  see  in  his  own  home  one  whose  name  had  been 
so  familiar  to  me  from  my  school-days,  he  good-naturedly  remarked 
that  I  should  find  in  him  at  least  but  a  ruin.  He  is  indeed  a  good 
deal  broken  in  body  and  intellect,  but  his  venerable  countenance, 
worn  as  it  is  by  the  cares  of  a  long  life,  is  lighted  up  with  the 
kindly  beams  of  charity  and  good-will,  and  his  conversation,  inter- 
rupted occasionally  by  forgetfulness  and  absence  of  mind,  is  ani- 
mated, intelligent,  and  full  of  interest.  He  spoke  of  art  and 
artists,  of  scholars,  their  toils  and  high  vocation,  with  the  quiet, 
lingering  enthusiasm  of  a  veteran  in  intellectual  service,  adverted 
with  delight  to  the  present  advanced  state  of  philology  in  com- 
parison with  the  period  of  his  own  early  life,  and  bade  us  look 
well  to  the  aims  we  should  cherish  and  the  increased  obligations 
we  should  fulfill.  He  has  lived  a  long  and  laborious  life,  and 
reached  with  honor  a  serene  and  cheerful  old  age. 

I  have  spent  several  hours  to-day  in  attending  the  recitations 
of  some  of  the  higher  classes  in  the  Gymnasium.  The  classical 
course  is  longer  and  more  extensive  than  in  the  German  gym- 
nasia in  general,  and  besides  the  ordinary  five  classes,  Prima,  Se- 
cunda,  etc.,  there  is  a  Selecta,  the  highest  of  all,  in  all  the  re- 
citations of  which  Latin  only  is  spoken,  and  a  higher  order  of 
instruction  imparted.  It  is  not  unfrequently  the  case  that  stu- 


92  LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

dents  from  Berlin  and  other  gymnasia,  after  having  passed  all 
their  examinations  with  the  first  honors,  come  to  Gotha  and  spend 
two  years  in  the  Selecta.  The  whole  course  covers  at  least  a  period 
of  ten  years,  and  the  ordinary  age  at  graduating  is  twenty,  and 
during  this  period  all  the  branches  of  study  are  pursued,  which 
are  preparatory  to  a  professional  course  at  the  university.  I  use 
the  word  "university"  here  in  the  German  and  the  proper  sense  of 
the  word ;  an  American  university,  if  we  institute  a  very  general 
comparison,  is  a  limited  German  gymnasium.  It  were  scarcely 
possible  by  any  modifications,  as,  for  instance,  by  the  union  of 
professional  faculties,  as  at  Yale  and  Cambridge,  with  the  collegi- 
ate faculty,  to  convert  an  American  college  into  a  German  univer- 
sity ;  it  were  easier  to  convert  it  into  a  German  gymnasium,  by 
merging  in  it  the  academy,  and  increasing  the  period  and  course 
of  study.  I  believe  that  it  is  conceded  by  our  wisest  men  that  our 
systems  of  education  require  radical  change ;  and  it  seems  to  me 
to  be  indispensable  to  all  real  improvement  to  perceive  and  ac- 
knowledge the  simple  fact  that  a  college  is  a  college,  and  no  uni- 
versity. 

Perhaps  a  little  notice  of  the  three  recitations  which  I  attended 
may  be  of  some  interest  to  some  of  your  readers.  The  first  was 
the  Unter-Secunda,  in  Homer's  Odyssey.  They  had  been  read- 
ing Homer  since  the  commencement  of  the  semester  at  Easter. 
The  two  things  that  most  struck  me  here  were  the  extreme  atten- 
tion given  to  the  doctrine  of  accents,  and  the  constant  comparison 
of  the  Greek  with  corresponding  expressions  in  Latin.  In  gram- 
mar, great  accuracy  and  thoroughness  in  the  forms.  Homer  is 
read  regularly  four  years,  and  in  the  highest  class  generally  once 
a  week.  The  second  recitation  was  the  Prima  in  Virgil.  With 
this  I  was  extremely  pleased.  The  mode  of  instruction  illustrated 
very  happily  the  union  of  the  two  divisions  in  classical  instruction, 
as  well  as  in  the  whole  business  of  philology,  which,  in  imitation 
of  the  German  expressions,  may  be  called  the  formal  and  the  ma- 
terial. The  grammar,  in  all  its  parts,  was  faithfully  attended  to, 
and  the  subject-matter  developed  and  explained.  Some  of  the 
questions  I  still  remember.  The  passage,  if  I  remember  aright, 
was  in  the  6th  book,  somewhere  about  the  61st  line.  '•''Fas  est" 
What  is  the  distinction  between  this  expression  and  licet  and  debet  ? 
Illustrate  the  distinction  in  Latin.  "  Obstitit."  What  is  its  pri- 
mary meaning,  and  what  does  it  mean  here?  How  would  you 
express  the  present  meaning  in  other  Latin  words?  " Sanctissima 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  93 

vates."  Give  a  similar  Greek  expression  applied  to  Juno  by  Ho- 
mer. "Solido  ex  marmore"  Develop  the  meaning  of  solido 
from  the  theme.  What  is  the  connection  between  this  and  such 
expressions  as  "  solidus  homo"  "  solida  gloria?"  Is  "  solida 
doctrina  "  good  Latin  ?  The  allusion  to  the  temple  promised  by 
uiEneas  gave  rise  to  a  description  of  the  Apollo  Palatinus,  built 
by  Augustus,  and  thus  skillfully  mentioned  by  Virgil,  its  library, 
its  manner  of  being  collected,  etc.  The  conditional  nature  of  the 
promise  involved  inquiries  concerning  the  nature  of  prayer  among 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  as  illustrated  by  passages  from  other 
writers,  and  comparison  with  Christian  prayer.  The  last  recita- 
tion I  attended  was  Latin  grammar,  in  the  Unter-Secunda,  —  the 
syntax.  This  was  conducted  quite  differently  from  the  manner 
pursued  among  us,  not  by  memory  and  recitation,  but  a  close  and 
thorough  course  of  questions,  accompanied  by  an  exaction  of  origi- 
nal and  copious  examples.  Afterwards,  exercises  in  writing  were 
presented  and  corrected. 

GENEVA   AND   ITS   SUEKOUNDINGS   AND   ASSOCIATIONS. 

(A  Letter  to  "  The  Watchman:'} 

Geneva,  October  20,  1843.  I  have  enjoyed  so  much  my  visits 
to  some  of  the  places  on  this  famed  lake  that  I  feel  tempted  to 
give  you  some  notices  of  them  before  speaking  of  Geneva  itself. 
Voltaire  said  rather  boldly  of  the  lake  of  Geneva,  "J/b?i  lac  est  le 
premier;"  and  Rousseau  and  Byron  loved  to  wander  upon  its 
banks  and  sail  upon  its  waters,  gazing  upon  its  varied  scenery, 
and  furnishing  their  imaginations  with  forms  of  beauty  and  sub- 
limity ;  and,  in  their  poetry,  they  have  employed  all  the  force  and 
riches  of  their  genius  in  rendering  it  celebrated  in  literature. 

I  got  my  first  view  of  the  lake,  by  moonlight,  from  the  hills 
behind  Vevay.  Left  quite  to  myself  toward  the  close  of  the  day's 
journey,  in  the  coupe  of  the  diligence,  I  had  been  busying  myself 
in  recalling  what  I  had  heard  and  read  of  the  lake,  and  in  nour- 
ishing agreeable  anticipations  of  the  pleasures  awaiting  me.  It 
was  a  fine  autumn  evening,  the  air  clear  and  cool,  the  sky  was 
serene,  and  all  nature  in  silent  repose.  On  gaining  the  brow  of 
the  hill,  a  scene  of  surpassing  beauty  broke  in  at  once  upon  the 
view.  There  lay  the  lake,  reflecting  in  its  clear  bosom  the  stars 
and  the  moon,  and  stretching  away  in  the  distance  like  a  sea  of 
silvery  light,  and  the  mountains  beyond,  rising  up  from  its  margin 


94  LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

and  extending  in  either  direction  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach, 
with  their  dark,  gloomy  sides  piled  up  against  the  bright  heavens, 
and  piercing  it  with  their  clear-defined,  sharp  outline.  The  height 
of  the  hills  at  this  end  of  the  lake  and  the  gradual,  winding  de- 
scent of  the  road  contribute  to  render  this  view  one  of  the  best 
that  can  be  had  from  any  point.  But  it  passed  away  quite  too 
soon.  With  a  drag  on  one  wheel,  and  the  horses  in  full  trot,  we 
soon  got  to  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  and  were  rattling  across  the 
market-place,  and  in  a  minute  more  were  buried  in  the  narrow, 
dark  street  of  the  town ;  and,  on  the  coach  stopping  at  the  dili- 
gence office,  all  my  pleasant  emotions  were  put  an  end  to  by  the 
usual  bustle  of  such  scenes,  the  importunities  of  hotel  porters,  and 
the  care  of  looking  after  luggage. 

The  next  morning  the  agreeable  impressions  of  the  evening 
were  renewed  by  a  view  of  the  same  scenery  in  the  clearer  light 
of  the  sun,  and  in  the  finest  weather.  The  hotel  at  which  I 
stopped,  called  the  Trois  Couronnes,  and  the  best  in  all  Switzer- 
land, is  finely  situated  directly  on  the  lake.  You  step  from  the 
breakfast-room  into  a  garden  tastefully  furnished  with  trees  and 
shrubbery  and  graveled  walks  and  a  flight  of  stone  steps  to  the 
lake.  Here  you  find  yourself  in  the  midst  of  the  scenes  which 
furnished  the  materials  of  Rousseau's  "  Nouvelle  Heloise,"  and  of 
Byron's  "  Prisoner  of  Chillou,"  and  some  of  the  finest  passages 
of  his  "  Childe  Harold." 

Immediately  opposite,  the  little  town  of  Meillerie,  backed  by  a 
range  of  rocky  hills ;  on  the  curved  shore  of  the  lake,  to  the  east, 
Montreux,  Clarens,  and  Chillon ;  farther  on,  a  distant  view  of  the 
upper  end  of  the  lake,  of  the  town  of  Villeneuve,  and  the  entrance 
of  the  Rhone,  and  behind  these,  towering  to  the  heavens,  the 
snowy  peaks  of  the  Valais  Alps.  The  near  vicinity  of  these  lofty 
Alpine  summits,  and  the  contrast  of  the  pleasant  slopes  on  the 
Vevay  side,  with  the  steep,  rocky  hills  on  the  opposite  shore,  ren- 
der the  view  extremely  grand.  The  poets  have  not  exaggerated 
the  singular  beauty  of  the  water  of  the  lake.  Such  a  perfect  crys- 
tal clearness,  united  with  their  blue  color,  is  certainly  very  re- 
markable. In  the  afternoon  I  made  an  excursion  to  Villeneuve 
in  the  steamboat,  and  walked  back  on  the  lake  road,  visiting  the 
places  of  interest.  In  approaching  Villeneuve  we  passed  close  by 
the 

"  Little  isle, 

Which  in  my  very  face  did  smile, 
The  only  one  in  view," 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  95 

so  beautifully  described  in  the  "  Prisoner  of  Chillon."  Nothing 
could  be  more  accurate  than  the  poetical  description  of  this  little 
spot.  After  a  short  walk  from  Villeneuve  I  came  to  the  castle 
of  Chillon.  It  is  a  large,  gloomy-looking  building,  on  a  rock  in 
the  lake,  but  close  by  the  road,  with  which  it  is  connected  by  a 
little  wooden  bridge.  A  Swiss  soldier  was  walking  up  and  down 
the  bridge,  in  the  harmless  occupation  of  keeping  guard;  and  in 
the  courtyard  I  met  with  a  man  who  seemed  to  be  the  present 
factotum  of  the  place,  who  took  me  all  about  it,  telling  me  much 
more  about  all  its  history  and  mysteries,  in  which  he  appeared  to 
be  perfectly  au  fait,  than  I  can  just  now  distinctly  recall.  After 
descending  a  flight  of  steps  leading  from  the  yard,  and  passing 
through  a  large  vault  and  a  narrow,  very  dark  passage,  I  came 
into  the  celebrated  dungeon  of  "  the  prisoner."  It  is  very  much 
as  Byron  describes  it,  though  not  so  deep  nor  so  very  dark  and 
gloomy  as  I  had  expected  to  find  it ;  and  indeed  the  rays  of  the 
declining  sun,  reflected  through  the  little  hole  in  the  wall  upon  its 
pillars  and  rocky  sides,  made  a  very  agreeable  impression,  though, 
indeed,  not  agreeable  enough  to  excite  any  desire  to  take  up  a 
residence  there  for  any  length  of  time.  The  "  seven  columns 
massy  and  gray  "  divide  the  dungeon  into  two  parts,  and  give  it  a 
kind  of  Gothic  church-like  appearance.  There  is  still  a  ring  on 
one  of  them,  to  which  the  prisoner's  chain  was  fastened.  On  the 
same  column  Byron  has  left  his  name,  cut  in  the  stone,  and  under 
it  is  that  of  a  Russian  poet  who  has  translated  Byron's  works. 
In  the  passage  close  by  I  was  shown  a  black,  ugly-looking  beam, 
hung  across  the  walls,  on  which  condemned  prisoners  are  said  to 
have  been  hung.  In  another  part  of  the  building  are  the  remains 
of  one  of  those  frightful  places,  in  use  in  former  ages,  into  which 
unfortunate  victims  were  flung  down  upon  instruments  of  torture 
and  death  from  a  trap-door  above. 

This  building  was  used  in  former  times  as  a  state  prison,  and 
some  of  the  early  reformers  were  confined  here.  Byron  mentions 
the  name  and  fate  of  Bonnivard,  in  the  sonnet  upon  Chillon, 
though  it  seems  that  he  was  not  acquainted  with  the  particulars 
of  his  history  before  composing  his  poem.  He  was  a  prior,  who 
was  "  seized  by  the  Duke  of  Savoy  for  his  exertions  to  free  the 
Genevese  from  the  Savoyard  yoke,  and  carried  off  to  this  castle," 
where  he  lay  immured  for  six  years.  But  on  the  recovery  of  the 
Pays  de  Vaud  and  the  taking  of  Chillon  by  the  Bernese  and 
Genevese  forces,  Bonnivard,  with  some  other  prisoners,  was  set 


96  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1&44. 

free.     The  building  is  now  used  by  the  canton  as  a  magazine  for 
military  stores. 

Montreux  is  one  of  the  most  quiet,  beautiful  spots  on  the  lake, 
at  the  foot  of  a  high  mountain  called  the  Dent  de  Jaman.  Its 
sheltered  situation  and  mild  climate  render  it  a  delightful  winter 
residence.  Then  farther  on  you  come  to  Clarens,  "sweet  Clarens," 
which  Byron  has  described  with  such  enthusiasm ;  but  you  must 
not  be  in  a  prosaic  mood,  if  you  would  realize  his  fine  verses  upon 
this  spot.  Indeed,  nothing  less  than  the  poet's  eye  and  fine  frenzy 
of  inspiration  could  invest  it  with  such  peculiar  charms,  for  it  is 
an  extremely  ordinary  village,  and  has  no  particular  merit  above 
many  others  on  the  lake.  But  we  must  not  take  the  poet  too 
literally ;  he  seems  to  have  chosen  Clarens  to  give  some  local 
habitation  to  the  rich  thoughts  and  glowing  images  which  thronged 
in  upon  his  mind  in  the  midst  of  all  the  surrounding  scenery. 
With  this  impression  you  can  appreciate  and  enjoy  all  that  he 
has  said  of  the  place. 

"'Tisloae 

And  wonderful,  and  deep,  and  hath  a  sound 
And  sense  and  sight  of  sweetness;  here  the  Rhone 
Hath  spread  himself  a  couch,  the  Alps  have  reared  a  throne." 

Lausanne.  The  next  morning  I  took  a  steamboat  for  this  place. 
It  is  a  sail  of  about  an  hour  from  Vevay.  It  is  situated  very  high, 
and  makes  a  fine  impression  from  the  lake,  the  houses  built  along 
upon  the  slope  of  the  hill,  and  peering  above  them  all,  its  cathedral 
and  castle.  The  boat  stops  at  a  little  village  called  Ouchy.  Close 
by  the  landing-place  is  the  little  inn  in  which  Byron  wrote  his 
"Prisoner  of  Chillon"  during  two  days  in  which  he  was  kept  here 
by  bad  weather.  Behind  the  Cathedral  is  the  Castle,  the  former 
residence  of  the  bishops,  a  large,  irregular  building,  surmounted 
with  four  turrets.  The  terraces  in  the  higher  parts  of  Lausanne 
furnish  agreeable  views  and  pleasant  walks ;  and  there  is  a  mag- 
nificent prospect  from  a  lofty  point  called  The  Signal,  which  well 
repays  all  the  trouble  of  climbing  up  to  it,  especially  at  sunset. 
Nothing  can  be  finer  than  the  view  at  that  time.  The  lake  glit- 
ters like  gold  in  the  light  of  the  setting  sun,  and  all  the  trees  and 
the  vineyards  and  the  tops  of  the  houses  reflect  its  rich  mellow 
hues ;  and  as  the  sun  sinks  behind  Mount  Jura,  you  watch  its 
last  rays  lingering  upon  the  summits  of  the  Savoy  hills  and  the 
mountains  beyond. 

My  high  expectations  of  Geneva  have  not  been  disappointed ; 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  97 

one  could  not  well  be  in  a  more  agreeable  spot,  nor  richer  in 
combinations  of  the  beautiful  and  the  grand.  Its  situation  at  the 
end  of  the  lake,  embosomed  in  woods  and  waters,  and  surrounded 
by  every  variety  of  hill  and  mountain  scenery,  is  one  of  the  finest 
in  the  world.  The  sloping  banks  of  the  lake  are  scattered  with 
gardens  and  vineyards  and  beautiful  villas,  and  on  one  side  and 
extending  far  around  you  have  the  lofty,  unbroken  range  of  the 
Jura,  and  on  the  other,  through  an  opening  in  the  hills,  the  snowy 
peaks  of  Mont  Blanc  and  of  the  other  mountains  in  the  chain 
of  the  Savoy  Alps.  But  it  is  Mont  Blanc  that  forms  the  all- 
commanding  object  of  interest  in  the  scenery  of  Geneva.  Wherever 
you  may  be,  whether  on  the  lake,  on  the  promenades,  or  on  the 
neighboring  hills,  at  sunrise,  sunset,  and  at  noonday,  the  presence 
of  "  the  monarch  of  mountains  "  is  with  you,  impressing  you  with 
its  quiet  grandeur,  and  mingling  its  solemn  lessons  with  all  your 
thoughts  and  feelings. 

The  city  itself  is  divided  by  the  rushing  Rhone  into  two  parts, 
united  together  by  several  bridges,  one  of  them  long  and  handsome 
and  connected  with  a  little  isle,  on  which  there  is  a  statue  of 
Rousseau.  The  older  and  larger  part,  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Rhone,  consists  of  the  upper  and  lower  town,  from  the  uneven 
nature  of  the  ground.  The  former  only  is  very  agreeable,  and  is 
graced  with  many  elegant  mansions  of  the  wealthier  citizens ;  in 
the  lower  town  are  the  shops,  and  offices,  and  places  of  public 
business,  in  which  the  streets  are  narrow  and  damp,  and  the 
houses  very  high. 

In  former  times,  when  the  distinctions  of  rank  were  more  marked 
than  now,  as  well  in  the  form  of  government  as  in  social  life,  the 
aristocracy  lived  exclusively  above,  and  the  democracy  below,  and 
the  two  parties  were  engaged  in  continual  quarrels  with  each 
other ;  and  one  way  in  which  the  democracy  used  to  amuse  them- 
selves at  the  expense  of  their  patrician  neighbors,  and  bring  them 
to  terms,  was  by  cutting  off  the  pipes  which  supplied  the  upper 
town  with  water,  the  hydraulic  machine  being  down  below,  and 
quite  under  their  control. 

Among  the  many  pleasant  walks  I  have  made  in  the  vicinity  is 
one  to  the  junction  of  the  Arve  with  the  Rhone,  a  little  way 
behind  the  city.  You  go  along  by  a  shady  footpath  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  Rhone :  on  the  other  side,  the  banks  are  very  high, 
and  the  narrow  slopes  below  are  covered  with  vineyards.  You 
soon  come  to  the  narrow  point  of  land  where  the  two  rivers  meet. 


98  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

two  streams  as  different  as  possible  in  outward  appearance,  the 
Khoue  blue  and  clear  and  rapid,  and  the  Arve  having  all  the 
muddy  heavy  look  of  all  mountain  streams  fed  by  snows  and 
glaciers.  For  some  little  distance  the  waters  keep  quite  distinct, 
and  the  opposing  colors  seem  to  refuse  all  union,  but  the  beautiful 
blue  proves  too  feeble  in  the  struggle,  and  at  length  entirely  dis- 
appears. It  is  a  retired,  quiet  spot,  quite  shut  in  by  the  banks 
of  the  two  rivers.  Another  pleasant  walk  is  to  Diodati,  in  the 
village  of  Cologny,  the  residence  of  Lord  Byron  while  he  was  in 
Geneva.  It  is  a  pleasant  villa  on  the  south  shore  of  the  lake, 
sufficiently  high  for  a  good  view,  and  having  agreeable  gardens 
and  walks ;  but  the  pictures  I  have  often  seen  of  it  pleased  me 
better  than  the  place  itself.  Byron  wrote  here  his  "  Manfred " 
and  the  third  canto  of  "  Childe  Harold."  Ferney,  the  place  where 
Voltaire  lived  so  many  years,  is  about  five  miles  from  Geneva,  on 
the  road  to  Paris ;  but  I  have  not  yet  been  to  see  it,  and  indeed 
I  have  not  sufficient  admiration  for  his  genius  and  character  to 
induce  any  strong  desire  to  go  at  all.  The  most  interesting  ex- 
cursion in  the  immediate  vicinity  is  to  the  summit  of  Mont  Saleve, 
a  mountain  to  the  southeast  of  Geneva,  and  more  than  3,000 
feet  above  the  lake.  I  made  the  ascent  a  few  days  ago  with 
some  friends,  and,  though  I  found  it  very  fatiguing,  was  well 
repaid  for  my  pains  by  the  view  from  the  top.  After  walking 
about  three  miles,  you  reach  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  whose 
steep,  rugged  sides  make  a  very  picturesque  appearance.  Hence 
you  get  up  by  a  steep  footpath,  the  upper  part  formed  of  steps 
cut  in  the  rock,  to  the  little  village  of.  Monnetier.  From  this 
village  to  the  top  you  have  two  miles  of  rather  hard  climbing 
on  a  path  covered  with  pieces  of  broken  rock,  which  no  one 
should  begin  to  mount  without  first  looking  well  to  the  quality 
of  his  shoe-leather,  as  we  all  learned  from  the  fate  of  one  of 
our  party,  quite  unsuitably  provided  in  this  respect,  who,  poor 
fellow,  bore  it  as  long  as  he  could,  picking  his  way  and  treading 
softly,  but  finally  gave  up  in  despair  and  turned  back,  protesting 
that  Mont  Saleve  was  not  worth  seeing.  The  rest  of  us  pushed 
on,  and  after  some  hard  experience  reached  the  top.  With  the 
exception  of  three  or  four  trees,  the  summit  is  very  bare  and 
exposed  ;  and  the  air  being  sufficiently  cold,  we  were  glad  to 
get  into  a  little  rude  chalet,  the  only  dwelling  there,  and  warm 
ourselves  round  a  fire  made  upon  the  rocky  earth,  the  smoke 
of  which  got  out  as  well  as  it  could  through  a  large  hole  in 


LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  99 

the  roof.  Here  we  got  a  cup  of  coffee  and  some  bread,  but 
unfortunately  the  coffee  was  cold  and  the  bread  hard,  the  latter 
from  age,  and  the  former  from  being  two  thirds  milk,  but  as 
we  were  hungry  and  thirsty,  it  was  all  gradually  disposed  of, 
with  no  worse  results  than  rendering  our  stomachs  a  little  less 
warm  and  light  than  they  were  before.  But  we  found  enough 
in  the  scenery  without  to  dissipate  all  thoughts  of  fatigue  and 
inconvenience.  The  prospect  is  varied  and  extensive  and  full 
of  surpassing  interest,  —  Mont  Blanc  and  the  adjacent  mountains 
directly  in  view,  their  peaks  crowned  with  snow,  and  glaciers 
streaming  from  their  sides ;  and  the  populous  valley  below,  inter- 
sected by  the  Rhone  and  the  Arve,  and  bounded  on  the  north 
by  the  Jura,  and  on  the  east  by  the  vast  expanse  of  the  lake. 
It  was  late  in  the  day  as  we  went  away,  and  most  of  the  way 
down  to  Monnetier  we  had  these  snowy  mountains  before  us, 
glowing  in  the  soft  rich  colors  of  the  setting  sun ;  the  view  of 
these  hoary  peaks  in  the  mellowed  hues  of  sunset,  if  it  be  less 
sublime,  is  certainly  all  the  more  beautiful,  and  mingles  with 
softer  sentiments  those  grander  impressions  which  they  usually 
awaken. 

Geneva  is  rich  in  historical  associations,  from  the  fame  of  her 
great  men  and  the  momentous  events  which  have  occurred  in  it ; 
and  as  the  home  of  Calvin  and  one  of  the  principal  seats  of  the 
Reformation,  its  history  is  coincident  with  that  of  Europe  and 
the  world.  In  regard  to  matters  of  religious  faith  and  practice, 
Calvin  would  scarcely  recognize  in  the  Geneva  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  place  where  he  lived  and  preached  and  wrote,  and 
ruled  so  long  with  uncontrolled  dominion.  In  this  respect,  Geneva 
has  been  more  seriously  influenced  than  England  and  America,  and 
scarcely  less  than  Germany,  by  the  prevailing  forms  of  philosophy 
and  intellectual  culture  since  the  beginning  of  the  present  century. 
The  theology  taught  in  its  academy  and  preached  in  most  of  its 
pulpits  resembles  in  its  great  features  the  Unitarianism  of  New 
England  and  the  earlier  forms  of  German  Rationalism,  and,  like 
these  systems,  it  is  fluctuating  and  uncertain,  and  wanting  in  posi- 
tive, enduring  elements.  Very  important  differences  of  opinion 
exist  within  the  pale  of  the  national  church ;  and  the  stricter  adher- 
ents of  Calvinism  have  separated  themselves,  and  now  form  a  dis- 
tinct, dissenting  organization,  having  in  addition  to  their  church 
a  separate  school  of  theology.  M.  d'Aubigne,  the  distinguished 
author  of  the  "  History  of  the  Reformation,"  is  one  of  the  profes- 


100  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

sors  in  this  school.  This  party  is  generally  designated  in  conver- 
sation and  in  the  daily  journals  by  the  name  of  Methodists  ;  and 
on  inquiring  several  times  about  the  meaning  of  the  word,  I  have 
been  told  that  they  held  to  the  stricter  Orthodox  doctrines,  and 
disapproved  of  people  going  to  the  theatre,  and  mingling  in  what 
are  usually  called  worldly  pleasures. 

THE   STUDY   OF   MODERN   LANGUAGES.  —  AN   INTERESTING   EXCUR- 
SION   AND   A    SHORTAGE   OF   CASH. 

Geneva,  November  24,  1843.  I  have  been  much  more  inter- 
ested than  I  ever  expected  to  be  in  the  study  of  these  modern 
languages  (Italian  and  French),  and  hope  to  find,  as  I  have 
already  in  part  done,  my  experience  in  this  way  of  great  avail  in 
the  further  prosecution  of  Latin  and  Greek.  The  habits  which 
one  acquires,  and  the  new  views  one  gets  on  the  whole  subject  of 
language,  by  getting  well  acquainted  with  living  tongues,  may  be 
turned  to  excellent  account  in  the  study  of  languages  which  are 
now  extinct.  At  any  rate,  my  time  and  money  spent  in  this  foreign 
expedition  never  could  have  been  better  employed ;  of  this  I  am 
absolutely  sure.  I  am  only  sorry  that  I  have  not  enough  left  for 
a  long  enough  residence  in  Italy,  and  (pray  don't  tell  me  I  don't 
want  to  come  home)  one  not  less  long  in  Greece !  Indeed,  if  I 
were  sure  of  devoting  myself  hereafter  to  the  ancient  languages,  I 
would  scarcely  scruple  to  devote  the  few  hundreds  still  remaining 
to  me  to  a  residence  in  these  two  countries  of  some  months  at  least. 
The  benefit  resulting  would  be  infinite  in  comparison  with  the 
outlay  of  money.  I  feel  as  happy  as  a  child  when  I  think  of  en- 
tering the  gates  of  the  "  Eternal  City,"  and  exploring  its  localities 
and  gazing  upon  its  time-honored  ruins.  I  scarcely  dare  to  think 
about  it  in  advance,  much  less  to  write  about  it,  lest  it  should 
after  all  be  denied  me. 

I  have  made  an  interesting  excursion,  which  I  enjoyed  very 
much,  to  the  Perte  du  Rhone,  literally,  the  loss  of  the  Rhone,  a 
place  where  the  river  mysteriously  disappears  for  a  short  distance 
in  the  earth,  visiting  I  know  not  what  sort  of  people  in  the  regions 
below.  I  went  with  three  of  the  young  men  who  live  here  in  our 
2>ension,  two  of  them  Russians,  and  the  third  German.  We  took 
a  carriage  from  Geneva,  and  were  gone  in  all  a  day  and  a  half. 
It  was  fine  weather  when  we  started,  and  we  had  high  expecta- 
tions. It  was  a  ride  of  about  four  hours  on  the  road  to  Lyons, 
when  we  came  to  a  place  called  Collonges,  already  some  ways  into 


LETTERS  FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  101 

France,  where '  we  stopped  for  the  night.  It  was  about  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  we  were  cold  and  hungry.  We  got  a 
room  upstairs,  had  a  good  fire  made,  and  ordered  supper.  And  a 
grand  supper  it  was ;  and  we  sat  and  eat  and  drank  and  talked, 
and  sang  songs,  Russian,  French,  German,  and  English,  till  about 
eleven  o'clock,  when  we  were  ready  to  break  up  and  go  to  bed. 
We  slept  soundly  enough  till  six  o'clock,  when  we  woke  up  to  find 
the  heavens  hung  in  black  clouds,  and  pouring  rain,  snow,  and 
hail !  A  fine  prospect  before  us  of  seeing  the  Perte  du  Rh6ne ! 
We  waited  till  eight,  hardly  knowing  what  to  do,  when  there  be- 
gan to  be  some  signs  of  better  weather,  and  we  determined  to  go 
on.  Into  the  carriage  we  got.  and  shut  up  ourselves  against  the 
fog  and  damp  without,  for  which  we  endeavored  to  make  up  as 
well  as  we  could  by  conversation  and  singing  within.  We  came  in 
a  little  while  to  the  French  Fort  de  1'^cluse,  a  place  of  wondrous 
strength,  both  by  nature  and  art.  It  is  built  on  the  side  of  the 
lofty  Jura,  hanging  above  the  narrow  road,  far  down  below  which 
runs  the  Rhone,  and  on  the  other  side  a  high,  curious-looking  Sa- 
voy mountain,  called  the  Vouache.  We  passed  by  it,  leaving  all 
further  examination  till  our  return.  We  came  at  length  to  a  lit- 
tle place  called  Bellegarde,  near  which  is  the  Perte.  It  was  such 
wet,  muddy  walking,  and  we  were  so  badly  provided  with  boots, 
we  had  to  muster  among  the  good  villagers  some  thick,  clumsy, 
shoes,  with  which  we  fortified  ourselves,  and  following  in  the  wake 
of  an  old  woman  as  guide,  went  down  the  steep  bank  of  the  river. 
It  is  a  grand,  magnificent  place,  and  the  bad  weather,  with  the 
thick,  lazy  clouds  rolling  about  the  sides  of  the  mountains,  only 
added  to  the  wildness  of  the  scene.  Byron  well  describes  the  spot 
in  the  lines,  — 

"  Where  the  swift  Rhone  cleaves  his  way  between 
Heights  which  appear  as  lovers  who  have  parted." 

There  we  went  down  below  the  mountains,  which  surrounded  us 
on  all  sides,  the  swift  river  rushing  on  and  foaming  in  its  rocky 
course,  and  then  disappearing  as  quietly  as  possible  in  the  earth, 
and  some  hundred  yards  farther  flowing  on  again  as  if  nothing 
in  the  world  had  happened.  It  is  a  curious  phenomenon  enough, 
and  looks  so  strange  to  see  a  rushing  river  all  at  once  utterly 
vanish  and  for  some  distance  remain  entirely  concealed  from  view. 
In  coming  back  in  the  afternoon  we  were  scarcely  less  pleased  in 
visiting  the  Fort.  It  makes  a  very  threatening,  warlike  appear- 


102  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

ance  from  the  road  below,  built  all  the  way  up  along  the  steep 
mountain,  and  presenting  its  ranges  of  ramparts  and  batteries. 
The  parts  above  are  connected  with  each  other  and  the  main 
building  below  by  staircases  cut  in  the  mountain.  Imagine  your- 
self going  up  some  1,100  steps  hewn  out  in  the  midst  of  the 
solid  mountain.  One  feels  a  little  uneasiness  sometimes  lest  the 
mountain  should  cave  in  upon  one's  head,  and  thus  effectually 
prevent  one  from  reaching  the  top,  or  indeed  perhaps  from  get- 
ting down  again.  But  the  old  Jura  played  us  no  such  freak, 
and  we  got  up  at  last  to  enjoy  a  fine  prospect,  mountains  behind 
and  on  both  sides,  and  directly  before  a  fine  open  view,  extending 
as  far  as  Geneva  and  the  lake.  From  the  fort  we  returned  on 
foot  to  Collonges,  as  we  had  sent  the  carriage  on  before.  We  had 
a  funny  adventure  to  close  our  excursion.  While  at  supper  at 
Collonges,  we  sent  for  our  bill,  and,  mustering  all  our  purses  and 
pockets,  found  that  our  resources  fell  short  of  the  required 
amount.  An  unpleasant  predicament,  as  we  were  perfect  stran- 
gers in  the  place  !  In  truth  we  had  lived  pretty  freely,  and  what 
with  two  suppers  and  breakfast  for  four  of  us,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  fluids  for  the  former,  and  beds  and  fire  and  candles,  the  bill 
came  to  forty-three  francs  !  We  made  a  parley  with  "  mine  host," 
and  got  off  by  leaving  a  watch  in  pawn  for  the  deficiency  in  the 
money !  That  was  a  great  joke,  was  n't  it,  for  four  respectable  fel- 
lows like  us  ?  We  sent  the  money  next  day,  but  the  watch  has  n't 
yet  made  its  appearance,  though  we  expect  it  to-day.  So  much 
for  not  counting  the  cost  and  not  taking  one's  purse.  It  was  on 
the  whole  a  very  agreeable  excursion,  and  did  me  a  great  deal  of 
good,  for  I  have  kept  myself  rather  close  since  I  have  been  here, 
and  taken  too  little  exercise,  and  had  begun  to  feel  the  need  of 
some  little  change.  I  shall  get  to  Rome  as  quickly  as  possible. 
I  feel  that  I  have  no  time  to  lose,  and  much  less  money  to  spare. 

GENOA.  —  ROMISH   AND   PROTESTANT    HABITS   OF   REVERENCE.  - 
ACROBATIC    BEGGARS. 

(A  Letter  to  "  The  Watchman.")  » 

Genoa,  December  12,  1843.  Here  is  a  city  well  worth  visit- 
ing. It  has  more  marked,  peculiar  features  than  any  which  I 
have  before  seen,  charming  in  the  extreme  beauty  of  its  situation, 
and  imposant  by  the  grandeur  of  its  churches  and  palaces.  I 
wish  I  could  give  you  an  idea  of  Genoa  as  I  saw  it  to-day  from  a 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  103 

high  point  just  out  of  the  city,  overhanging  the  sea.  There  lay 
the  beautiful,  crescent-shaped  bay,  covered  with  shipping,  and  the 
city  beyond  extending  around  the  base  of  a  declivity  of  the  Apen- 
nines, its  sloping  sides  adorned  with  a  brilliant  succession  of  villas, 
gardens,  and  woods,  and  the  tops  crowned  with  a  line  of  fortifica- 
tions. The  coup  cTceil  is  grand,  the  curved  shape  of  the  bay  and 
city,  the  houses  rising  above  each  other,  tier  upon  tier,  and  the 
gallery  of  fortifications,  giving  the  impression  of  a  magnificent 
amphitheatre.  The  interior  of  the  city  is  scarcely  less  interesting. 
In  some  of  the  older  parts,  the  streets  are  narrow  and  disagree- 
able, but  modern  Genoa  is  inferior  to  few  cities  in  Europe  in  its 
squares  and  promenades,  its  public  buildings,  and  the  palaces  of 
the  old  noble  families.  One  of  the  streets,  the  Strada  Nuova,  is 
occupied  exclusively  by  palaces,  and  nothing  can  exceed  the  grand 
effect  produced  by  these  lines  of  magnificent  buildings.  They  are 
characterized  throughout  by  a  colossal  style  of  grandeur,  their 
massive  facades  exhibiting  grand  portals,  gigantic  windows,  and 
projecting  cornices,  covered  with  various  architectural  ornaments, 
and  connected  on  one  side  with  long,  terraced  galleries,  through 
whose  arches  and  columns  you  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  fountains 
and  trees  in  the  adjoining  gardens.  All  these  palaces  contain 
choice  collections  of  paintings,  which  a  trifling  fee  to  the  porter 
renders  admissible  to  every  stranger.  Genoa  is  not  less  distin- 
guished in  the  number  and  character  of  its  churches.  I  have  been 
astonished  at  the  grand  scale  on  which  they  are  built,  and  with 
the  splendor  and  magnificence  with  which  they  have  been  adorned. 
No  pains  nor  expense  have  been  spared  in  rendering  them  costly 
monuments  of  art,  as  well  as  fitting  temples  of  the  Most  High. 
Some  of  them  have  been  erected  by  private  individuals  and  noble 
families  of  Genoa,  grand  and  lasting  memorials  of  the  piety  and 
munificence  of  their  founders. 

The  cathedral,  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  city,  is  built  in  a  curious 
style  of  architecture,  partly  Gothic  and  partly  Oriental.  The 
facade  is  formed  of  alternate  stripes  of  black  and  white  marble, 
and  has  an  immense  portal,  the  columns  of  which  are  said  to  have 
been  brought  from  Almeria,  at  the  time  of  the  taking  of  that  city, 
in  the  twelfth  century.  The  nave  of  the  church  preserves  still  its 
original  character,  its  walls  striped  alternately  with  white  and 
black,  and  the  columns  of  various  materials  and  colors,  marble, 
porphyry,  and  granite,  standing  upon  bases  of  basalt.  The  re- 
mainder of  the  church  is  quite  modern,  and  is  decorated  with 


104  LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

paintings  and  carved  ornaments.  One  of  the  chapels,  that  of  St. 
John  the  Baptist,  is  a  very  wonder  of  taste  and  elegance.  The 
altar  is  supported  by  four  columns  of  porphyry,  between  which  is 
a  marble  sarcophagus  containing  the  supposed  relics  of  the  Bap- 
tist, which,  by  the  way,  are  taken  out  once  a  year,  on  the  day  of 
his  nativity,  and  carried  in  procession.  Around  the  chapel  are 
sixteen  statues,  executed  by  Delia  Porta.  While  I  was  lingering 
here  to  gaze  upon  these  works  of  art,  I  observed  the  people  gath- 
ering, and  kneeling  near  the  chapel,  in  considerable  numbers,  and 
in  a  few  moments  a  priest  appeared  with  his  attendants,  and  com- 
menced reading  the  mass.  I  retired  to  a  place  among  the  wor- 
shipers, and  notwithstanding  my  want  of  acquaintance  and  sym- 
pathy with  the  rites  of  the  Catholic  Church,  I  found  enough,  in  the 
solemnity  of  the  place  and  of  the  whole  scene,  to  inspire  senti- 
ments of  reverence  and  devotion.  I  confess  that  I  am  scarcely 
ever  present  at  a  Catholic  service  without  being  struck  with  the 
contrast  between  the  perfect  decorum  and  silence  observed  by  all 
present,  the  air  of  solemnity  upon  every  countenance  and  pervad- 
ing the  whole  assembly,  and  the  business-like  way  of  coming  into 
church  in  our  country,  and  the  carelessness  and  languid  indiffer- 
ence too  often  visible  during  the  time  of  worship.  In  these  out- 
ward matters,  in  the  deep  reverence  for  the  church  as  the  temple 
of  God,  perhaps  we  may  learn  much  from  those  in  whose  doctrines 
and  culture  we  see  such  mournful  deviations  from  the  teachings 
and  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

In  Genoa  you  see  in  the  streets  all  the  animation  and  noisy 
gayety  of  Italian  life,  and  of  beggars  a  full  Italian  proportion,  of 
all  ages,  sexes,  and  characters.  Among  these  last,  some  of  the 
little  boys  brought  up  to  the  business  are  quite  adepts  in  their 
way,  and  the  most  amusing,  interesting  little  fellows  you  can  im- 
agine. The  little  black-eyed  urchins  tell  their  story  so  well,  wink- 
ing and  straining  hard  all  the  while  to  keep  their  faces  sober 
enough,  that  you  cannot  help  giving  them  something.  They  are 
quite  expert,  too,  in  performing  clever  little  feats  of  agility,  to 
secure  your  interest  and  charity.  As  I  was  walking  yesterday,  a 
ragged  little  fellow  came  by  and  caught  my  attention  with  his 
begging,  imploring  look,  and,  quick  as  lightning,  darted  off  upon 
the  pavement  in  a  series  of  circular  somersets  that  was  quite  start- 
ling. He  was  back  again  in  an  instant,  with  his  hand  out,  and 
telling  me,  with  a  woeful  look  and  tone,  that  he  was  a  pauvre  en- 
fant, etc.,  for  they  manage  to  pick  up  some  French  phrases,  too, 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  105 

to  get  along  better  with  foreigners.     These  poor  little  creatures 
will  describe  you  a  dozen  yards  of  somersets  for  a  couple  of  cents. 

ROME    AND    HER  ANTIQUITIES. ROMISH    AND    PROTESTANT   WOR- 
SHIP.    A    CALL   TO    PREACH    FROM    MAINE. 

Rome,  January  10,  1844.  My  time  is  amply  occupied  here; 
every  day  is  a  great  one;  all  have  to  be  italicized  in  my  journal, 
for  all  are  full  of  events.  It 's  a  great  place  to  see,  and  think,  and 
study.  A  year's  residence  here  might  be  the  making  of  any  man. 
But  my  time  is  limited.  I  do  as  much  as  I  can,  and  hope  to  bring 
away  somewhat  that  will  be  of  service  to  me  all  my  life.  I  had 
no  conception  till  I  came  here  of  the  immense  riches  of  Rome  in 
all  that  is  great  and  valuable,  in  means  of  high  cultivation.  True, 
it  is  chiefly  art,  its  history,  and  all  its  branches,  but  besides  this 
the  whole  subject  of  classical  archaeology,  history,  and  a  thousand 
other  things.  One  is  influenced  on  all  sides,  wherever  one  goes, 
by  great  subjects  of  thought  and  study,  and  is  conscious  of  breath- 
ing an  intellectual  atmosphere.  I  have  studied  all  my  mornings 
till  about  one,  and  then  gone  out  lionizing  till  five,  when  I  dine ; 
then  I  have  the  evening  to  try  to  collect  myself,  make  notes,  etc. 
One  sees,  however,  so  much,  and  is  so  operated  upon  by  what  is 
seen,  that  one  gets  wearied  out  by  night.  I  have  been  to  the  old 
site  of  the  Forum  more  than  anywhere  else,  and  know  it  as  well 
as  any  part  of  Boston.  One  feels  himself  verily  in  old  Rome  in 
walking  about  this  place  and  the  vicinity.  You  see  the  whole 
course  of  the  Via  Sacra,  and  can  trace  it  through  the  arch  of  Sep- 
timius  Severus,  and  winding  round  up  to  the  Capitol  between  the 
ruined  columns  of  the  beautiful  temples  which  once  adorned  this 
part  of  the  Forum.  You  see  the  site  of  the  old  Rostra  and  the 
Comitium.  And  near  by  is  the  Palatine,  still  covered  with  mas- 
sive ruins  of  the  palace  of  the  Caesars.  And  then  a  little  way  on 
is  the  Coliseum.  What  a  magnificent  pile  is  this !  Words  give 
no  idea  of  it,  nor  of  the  feelings  it  inspires.  I  went  up  to  see  it 
by  moonlight  one  night,  and  it  was  the  grandest  spectacle  I  ever 
witnessed.  It  was  New  Year's  eve,  and  I  had  enough  in  the 
scene  and  the  occasion  to  impress  me  with  solemnity  and  inspire 
earnest  resolution.  Indeed,  the  sight  of  all  these  ruins  has  a  sal- 
utary moral  influence  upon  one's  whole  character.  There  is  more 
in  this  than  people  are  apt  to  suppose.  Near  the  Forum,  too,  are 
many  other  things ;  the  Circus  Maximus,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Palatine,  may  be  fixed  as  to  its  site,  though  the  extremity  towards 


106  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

the  Tiber  is  now  covered  with  modern  houses.  Across  the  whole 
length  of  it  runs  a  street,  called  the  Street  of  the  Circus.  Then 
there  is  the  Cloaca  Maxima,  not  far  off  from  here ;  a  mysterious 
sort  of  entrance,  through  a  little  path  under  low  arches,  brings  you 
to  a  clear,  fine  fountain,  in  which,  as  I  was  there,  some  Italians 
were  washing  their  dirty  breeches ;  then,  farther  on,  you  see  the 
mouth  of  the  Cloaca,  all  hung  over  with  moss  and  shrubbery,  now 
in  a  perfectly  neglected  state.  The  house  under  which  it  runs  to 
the  Tiber  is  filled  with  straw  and  hay.  One  thing  more  illus- 
trates the  value  of  a  residence  here,  in  regard  to  classical  studies, 
namely,  the  great  Circus  of  Romulus  (the  son  of  Maxentius). 
This  is  some  ways  out  of  the  city,  on  the  old  Via  Appia.  The 
whole  shape  is  visible,  and  ruins  of  the  walls  all  round  ;  the  Spina, 
too,  is  there,  and  the  Metae  at  each  end.  How  quickly  I  under- 
stood the  construction  of  these  Circi,  of  which,  from  pictures,  I  had 
tried  to  get  a  conception  in  teaching  the  classics.  You  remember 
the  first  ode  of  Horace,  the  "metaque  fervidis  evitata  rotis,"  — 
"curriculo  pulverem,"  etc.  I  remember  how  in  connection  I  tried 
at  Providence  to  understand  perfectly  the  whole  subject,  —  a  sin- 
gle visit  here  clears  it  all  up.  So  it  is  in  a  thousand  things.  Hor- 
ace actually  becomes  another  book  to  one  after  seeing  all  these 
spots. 

I  have  been  into  the  churches  a  good  deal,  as  there  have  been 
holy-days  since  I  have  been  here.  I  do  not  wonder  that  people 
of  a  certain  style  of  character,  both  in  England  and  America,  get 
a  leaning  to  Catholicism.  The  Protestant  service  has  not  enough 
of  the  outward,  and  not  enough,  strictly  speaking,  of  worship  ; 
it  is  too  exclusively  for  the  mind,  and  not  enough  for  the  heart ! 
The  sermon  is  all  in  all,  which  is  a  great  fault,  I  think.  There 
is  something  extremely  impressive  in  Catholic  forms  and  cere- 
monies. On  the  other  hand,  there  is  too  much  stuff  about  the 
whole  system,  which  no  sensible  and  enlightened  man  can  swallow, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  grave  doctrinal  errors.  But  in  regard  to 
authority,  this  tendency  to  Romanism  is  certainly  surprising  in 
our  times,  so  marked  by  an  opposite  tendency,  a  struggle  to  get 
from  all  authority ;  perhaps,  indeed,  in  some  cases  it  may  be  ex- 
plained as  a  reaction  ;  people  get  unmoored  and  tossed  about, 
having  no  fixed  resting-place,  and  are  glad  to  rest  in  the  bosom 
of  an  infallible  church.  I  feel  more  and  more  anxious  to  get 
home.  I  shall  love  my  country  and  all  my  friends  better  than 
ever.  Even  in  these  attractive  and  awakening  scenes,  home  has 


LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  107 

charms  for  me  beyond  everything ;  in  the  Coliseum  I  have  felt 
the  strongest  drawings  homeward,  and  felt  that  I  could  turn  my 
back  upon  all,  and  hasten  as  on  the  wings  of  the  wind.  By  the 
way,  I  had  almost  forgotten  to  say  where  I  read  the  Thanksgiving 
letters.  I  went  out  to  walk,  and  on  the  way  stopped  at  Torlonia's 
to  inquire  for  letters,  and  found  they  were  there.  I  went  on  in 
my  walk,  with  a  friend  with  me,  up  the  Quirinal,  where  we  rested 
by  the  fountain  of  Monte  Cavallo,  and  where  I  ran  over  the 
sheets,  in  the  shade  of  the  colossal  figures  of  Castor  and  Pollux, 
the  work  of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles.  Afterward  I  continued  my 
walk  alone  on  to  the  Forum  and  Coliseum,  and  seeking  out  a  nice 
seat  among  the  ruins  of  the  latter,  read  the  letters  carefully  over, 
thanking  you  all  from  my  inmost  heart  for  all  your  kind  wishes 
and  words  of  love.  And  singularly  enough  there  was  a  letter 
from  Waterville,  requesting  me  to  come  there  and  preach  as  soon 
as  I  return !  The  oddest  of  all  things  to  come  to  a  man  in  Rome  ! 
They  little  thought  the  sheet  would  travel  so  far  !  If  I  intended 
to  settle,  Waterville  would  please  me  in  many  respects,  but  this 
is  not,  cannot  be,  my  destiny.  I  want  occupation  of  another 
kind,  and  think  I  am  better  fitted  for  it,  by  my  whole  education. 

(A  Letter  to  "  The  Watchman:') 

ROME,  January  15,  1844. 
"I  am  in  Rome  !  oft  as  the  morning  sun 
Visits  these  eyes,  waking  at  once  I  cry, 
Whence  this  excess  of  joy  ?     What  has  befallen  me  ? 
And  from  within  a  thrilling  voice  replies, 
Thou  art  in  Rome  !  " 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  You  must  pardon  me  in  opening  my  letter  with 
these  lines  of  poetry,  which  came  from  the  heart  and  the  expe- 
rience of  the  author,  and  describe  so  truly  the  feelings  of  a  stran- 
ger in  Rome.  The  most  prosaic  man  may  get  a  little  out  of  the 
sober  vein  at  such  a  time,  and  borrow  the  aid  of  poetry  in  express- 
ing the  rapturous  joy  which  he  feels.  It  has  been  given  me  at 
length  to  see  with  my  own  eyes  the  Eternal  City.  From  Genoa, 
where  I  wrote  you  last,  I  hastened  on,  my  longing  desire  increas- 
ing at  every  step,  though  mingled  with  a  sort  of  tremulous  feeling 
that  cast  somewhat  of  mystery  over  the  whole  journey,  and  would 
scarce  let  me  venture  to  say  to  myself  whither  I  was  going.  But 
the  several  stages  safely  got  over,  and  the  wide,  solemn  Cam- 
pagna  traversed,  the  Tiber  and  the  city  burst  upon  my  view  ;  and 


108  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

entering  the  Via  Flaminia  and  passing  under  the  Porta  del  Po- 
polo,  I  could  finally  assure  myself  that  I  was  in  Rome.  But  I 
could  not  easily  tell  you  those  first  feelings  awakened  within  me, 
nor  perhaps  give  a  very  clear  account  of  the  several  next  succeed- 
ing days.  They  passed  away,  more  like  the  glad  visions  of  a 
dream  than  the  sober  passages  of  waking  life.  It  is  as  if  a  new 
life  begins  within  you  in  seeing  for  the  first  time  a  city  of  which 
you  have  seen  and  read  and  heard  so  much  from  the  earliest 
periods  of  your  recollection,  and  which  has  been  inseparably 
associated  with  your  whole  education.  An  utter  stranger  in  a 
foreign  city,  you  are  yet  in  a  place  you  have  known  long  and  well ; 
nothing  of  all  that  is  around  you  is  really  strange.  You  see  with 
your  own  eyes  the  scenes  that  have  been  familiar  to  your  thoughts 
and  feelings,  and  cherished  with  sentiments  of  reverence  and 
affection,  in  the  midst  of  which  your  spirit  was  nurtured  and 
gathered  its  early  strength,  and  whence  have  come  the  richest 
and  most  valuable  elements  of  your  intellectual  culture.  Goethe 
was  wont  to  speak  of  the  day  of  his  entrance  into  Rome  as  a 
second  birthday,  and  his  residence  in  it  as  the  period  of  his  edu- 
cation. Certainly  in  the  life  of  any  man,  no  event  can  be  more 
fruitful  in  intellectual  influence.  There  is  indeed  but  one  Rome 
in  the  world  ;  but  one  place  around  which  cluster  such  an  assem- 
blage of  great  objects,  a  place  so  rich  in  historical  interest,  in 
treasures  of  art  and  learning,  in  all  that  is  grand  and  beautiful 
and  valuable,  that  most  intimately  affects  the  life  and  being  of 
man.  It  is  a  great  school  of  study  and  high  cultivation,  for  all 
who  come  with  open  eye  and  earnest  mind.  The  man  of  humblest 
capacity  gets  quickened  and  strengthened  to  somewhat  of  high 
effort  and  attainment,  and  no  intellect  so  great  and  cultivated 
that  finds  not  here  enough  to  learn.  One  feels  himself  brought 
in  mysterious  nearness  to  the  past,  and  impressed  with  reverence 
and  awe,  in  living  in  a  city  more  than  two  thousand  years  old,  its 
history  the  history  of  the  world,  once  the  capital  of  an  empire  that 
overshadowed  the  earth,  the  nurse  of  literature  and  the  arts,  and 
the  mother  of  great  men.  This  mighty  people  has  passed  away 
with  the  master  spirits  that  guided  and  ruled  them,  that  empire 
long  since  broken  up  and  scattered ;  but  here  is  the  same  soil,  the 
same  hills,  the  walls  of  their  city  are  yet  standing,  and  every- 
where around  are  monuments  of  their  grandeur. 

I  should  get  too  much  into  detail  if  I  should  begin  to  tell  you 
of  the  grand  objects  which  I  have  beheld  in  exploring  the  locali- 


LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844.  109 

ties  of  ancient  Rome.  True,  it  is  often  a  perplexing  labor,  indeed, 
a  study  in  itself,  to  search  out  the  old  city  in  the  present  condi- 
tion of  the  new  ;  but  it  has  ever  such  an  exciting,  all-absorbing 
interest,  and  abundantly  repays  one's  time  and  pains.  But  much 
comes  unsought ;  you  have  only  to  go  with  open  eyes  to  see  the 
traces  of  the  ancient  glory,  often  where  you  least  expect  them, 
amid  the  crowd  and  hum  of  men,  in  the  busiest  haunts  of  modern 
Rome.  Yesterday,  in  passing  through  a  small,  narrow  street,  I 
came  suddenly  upon  two  beautiful  columns  of  an  old  temple,  which 
are  now  half  buried  in  the  earth,  in  strange  contrast  with  the  small 
hovels  about  them,  of  which  modern  masonry  has  made  them  a 
part ;  and  near  by  ruins  of  another  temple,  three  fine  Corinthian 
columns  supporting  a  richly  worked  architrave,  now  in  the  midst 
of  the  commonest  buildings.  In  the  heart  of  the  city,  on  one  of 
the  smaller  business  squares,  which  some  days  in  the  week  you 
find  alive  with  the  noisy  scenes  of  a  market-place  of  a  modern 
Forum  Venale,  stands  the  noble  Pantheon,  worn  and  darkened 
with  age,  but  proud  in  its  matchless  strength  and  beauty  as  in  the 
days  of  Agrippa  and  Augustus.  But  if  you  will  see  classic  Rome, 
you  must  thread  your  way  out  of  the  narrow,  crowded  streets  of 
the  modern  city,  and  bend  your  steps  to  the  Capitol  and  the 
Forum.  This  spot,  the  proudest  in  the  ancient  city,  so  rich  in 
classic  associations,  the  changing  influences  of  time  and  the  reck- 
less fury  of  invasion  seem  to  have  passed  over  less  rudely,  and 
have  left  its  general  form  and  numerous  monuments  of  its  former 
greatness.  Though  most  of  its  present  surface  is  many  feet 
above  the  old  level,  yet  in  some  parts  the  ancient  soil  is  visible ; 
the  whole  course  of  the  Via  Sacra  may  be  traced,  the  very  pave- 
ment still  left,  the  site  of  the  Comitium  and  the  Rostra,  and  on 
all  sides  the  arches  and  columns  of  the  temples  that  formerly 
adorned  this  place.  The  Palatine,  too,  is  there  before  you,  cov- 
ered with  the  massive  ruins  of  the  Palace  of  the  Caesars,  and  near 
by  the  grandest  relic  of  antiquity,  the  Coliseum.  In  presence  of 
the  Coliseum,  everything  else  seems  small  and  insignificant ;  it 
staggers  your  power  of  comprehension ;  you  seek  in  vain  to  get 
within  you  some  adequate  image  of  it ;  you  go  away  and  come 
again  and  again,  and  every  time  it  seems  greater  and  more  majes- 
tic. It  is  extremely  interesting,  too,  to  visit  the  remains  of  the 
great  useful  works  of  ancient  Rome,  the  Cloaca  Maxima  and  the 
enormous  ruins  of  the  baths  and  the  aqueducts.  It  gives  some 
just  conception  of  the  eminent  practical  spirit  of  the  Romans, 


110  LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

informed  and  ennobled  by  taste  and  an  enlightened  sense  of  the 
grand  and  magnificent. 

But  in  alluding  to  all  these  fine  monuments  of  the  past,  I  am 
reminded  of  that  architectural  wonder  of  modern  times,  the 
church  of  St.  Peter's.  This  wonderful  structure  yields,  in  gran- 
deur of  design  and  execution,  to  none  of  the  finest  of  ancient 
temples,  and  standing  there  in  its  entire  perfection,  teaches  what 
the  cultivated  art  of  modern  times  has  been  able  to  produce. 

I  have  been  amazed  at  the  treasures  of  art  in  the  Vatican  and 
the  Capitol.  It  is  incredible,  the  immense  extent  and  riches  of 
the  Vatican  galleries.  You  wander  from  room  to  room  in  admi- 
ration and  delight,  lost  in  a  wilderness  of  art,  and  when  you  stand 
before  the  Apollo  Belvedere  you  are  fastened  to  the  spot  as  if  by 
a  magic  spell.  It  is  an  era  in  one's  life  when  one  sees  for  the  first 
time  this  exquisite  work.  For  the  study  of  the  history  and  archae- 
ology of  art,  as  indeed  of  all  that  pertains  to  the  subject  of 
classical  antiquities,  no  place  can  be  equal  to  Rome.  And  since 
the  days  of  Winckelmann,  whose  labors  here  formed  an  epoch 
in  these  studies,  much  has  been  done  by  scholars  of  scarcely  less 
fame,  in  Italy  by  Zoega  and  Visconti,  and  in  Germany,  among 
many  others,  by  Bottiger,  Hirt,  Thiersch,  and  Otfried  Miiller. 
Additional  materials  have  been  gathered,  busts,  inscriptions,  and 
statues  discovered,  collected,  and  explained,  and  the  subjects  have 
assumed  a  scientific  form  and  character.  In  the  topography  of 
ancient  Rome,  great  service  has  been  rendered  by  the  works  of 
Canina  and  Bunsen,  and  recently  by  a  work  on  Roman  archeology 
by  Becker,  the  first  volume  of  which,  devoted  to  this  subject,  has 
already  appeared. 

But  I  must  hasten  to  close  this  letter,  which  may  be  getting  too 
long.  Yet  a  notice,  however,  of  one  or  two  things  which  may  be 
of  some  interest.  I  was  present  at  the  Christmas  service  at  St. 
Peter's.  It  was  certainly  a  grand  and  imposing  spectacle,  the 
presence  of  the  Pope  and  the  whole  body  of  cardinals  in  their  offi- 
cial robes,  and  a  countless  multitude  assembled  in  the  most  mag- 
nificent church  in  the  world,  to  celebrate  the  birth  of  Christ ;  but 
there  is  too  strong  a  mixture  of  the  worldly  in  the  whole  scene, 
too  much  of  a  pageant,  to  awaken  Christian  feelings  and  impres- 
sions, and  I  must  confess  that  I  found  the  service  growing  tedious 
and  repulsive,  and  was  glad  when  it  was  over.  A  few  days  ago 
I  attended  an  exhibition  of  languages  at  the  Propaganda.  Some 
fifty  exercises  were  exhibited  in  nearly  as  many  different  tongues, 


LETTERS  FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  Ill 

belonging  to  all  quarters  of  the  world ;  for  instance,  three  dialects 
of  the  Chinese,  the  Hebrew  and  its  kindred  dialects,  the  Coptic, 
Bulgarian,  etc.,  these  of  .course  all  by  native  students.  This,  you 
are  aware,  is  the  missionary  school  of  Rome.  If  it  only  sent 
abroad  the  pure  truth,  and  scattered  the  written  word ! 

In  closing,  let  me  mention  a  rare  pleasure  which  I  enjoyed  yes- 
terday in  attending  a  little  religious  meeting,  composed  of  tempo- 
rary residents  here,  mostly  from  England.  It  was  an  unexpected 
privilege  to  meet  here,  among  others,  Mr.  Ellis,  the  well  known 
missionary ;  Dr.  Keith,  the  author  of  the  work  usually  called 
"  Keith  on  the  Prophecies  ;  "  and  John  Harris,  the  distinguished 
author  of  the  "  Great  Teacher."  Thus  in  Rome,  too,  one  meets 
with  valued  Christians,  and  may  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  social  wor- 
ship. I  thought  of  the  words  of  the  Saviour,  that  neither  in  the 
mountain  of  Samaria,  nor  yet  in  Jerusalem  alone,  may  men  wor- 
ship the  Father ;  for  "  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  Him 
must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

POMPEII    AND    VESUVIUS. 

Rome,  April  6,  1844.  I  have  just  returned  from  Naples.  It 
is  the  most  beautiful  city  I  have  yet  seen ;  an  incomparably  lovely 
situation,  and  all  the  environs  from  Misenum,  on  one  side,  round 
to  Sorrento  on  the  other  extreme  point  of  the  semicircle,  charm- 
ing beyond  description.  Every  day  I  made  some  new  excursion. 
Pompeii  and  Vesuvius  were  the  places  that  interested  me  most, 
though  Baia3  and  Cumae  and  the  whole  vicinity  are  crowded  with 
classic  associations.  Pompeii  I  visited  twice,  and  went  over  the 
whole  of  it  very  carefully.  You  know  that  this  city  and  Hercula- 
neum  were  buried  by  one  of  the  eruptions  of  Vesuvius  in  the  year 
79,  and  have  been  excavated  since  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 
In  Herculaneum  comparatively  little  excavation  has  been  done, 
because  the  modern  town  of  Portici  is  built  upon  it ;  but  of  Pom- 
peii a  very  large  part  has  been  laid  open,  and  there  you  see  the 
streets  and  pavements,  temples,  theatres,  private  houses  and  shops, 
just  as  they  were  eighteen  centuries  ago,  when  this  unhappy  city 
was  destroyed  by  the  volcano.  It  is  a  place  full  of  instruction, 
and  to  myself,  in  regard  to  the  life  and  manners  of  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  of  immense  importance.  Many  things  that  I  knew 
only  from  books,  I  have  here  learned  by  personal  observation,  and 
in  a  manner  infinitely  more  clear  and  satisfactory.  The  ascent 
of  Vesuvius  was  laborious,  but  exciting  and  instructive.  From 


112  LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1841-1844. 

Naples  to  Portici,  by  railroad,  about  fifteen  minutes,  then  we 
walked  about  a  mile  to  Kesina,  and  there  took  ponies  and  com- 
menced the  ascent.  We  rode  about  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  a  large 
part  of  the  way  surrounded  everywhere  by  stones  and  rocks  of 
lava,  till  at  length  we  reached  the  steep  sides  of  the  mountain  it- 
self. From  here  we  climbed  up  on  foot,  a  difficult,  fatiguing  oper- 
ation, over  rocks  and  sand,  of  perhaps  three  quarters  of  an  hour. 
Arrived  at  the  top,  we  found  ourselves  on  the  ridge  of  the  open 
crater.  I  should  say  it  is  half  a  mile  round  it.  Down  below  we 
looked  upon  what  seemed  a  sea  of  sulphur  and  lava,  in  the  middle 
of  which  rose  the  smaller  cone,  from  which  was  continually  issuing 
smoke  and  flames  and  red-hot  stones,  attended  by  loud  explosions. 
We  got  down  the  sides  of  the  crater,  and  to  my  surprise  the  sul- 
phur and  lava,  which  from  above  had  looked  quite  liquid,  were 
hard,  and  easily  admitted  of  a  passage  over  them.  We  went  over, 
though  in  some  places  it  cracked  as  we  stepped,  and  clambered  up 
the  steep  sides  of  the  cone  till  we  got  very  near  the  very  mouth, 
and  farther  than  which  it  was  quite  impossible  to  go.  The  cone  is 
open  at  the  top  only  on  one  side,  so  that  we  felt  tolerably  secure, 
though  I  confess,  as  I  stood  there  and  heard  the  explosions  and 
saw  the  flames  and  red-hot  stones,  I  had  some  queer  sensations. 
But  it  is  a  grand  though  awful  spectacle,  and,  associated  with  all 
the  historical  interest  of  the  mountain,  inspires  the  most  solemn 
and  the  sublimest  emotions.  In  various  parts  below,  in  the  midst 
of  this  vast  sea  of  lava,  are  minor  cones,  or  little  eminences,  which 
are  hissing  and  spitting,  and  sending  little  pieces  of  burning  lava. 
I  stood  by  the  side  of  one,  and  pulled  out  a  little  piece  with  my 
cane,  and  jerked  it  along,  and  when  it  was  cold  enough,  took  it 
with  me.  In  returning  we  went  down  on  another  side,  where 
there  is  nothing  but  sand,  and  a  precious  time  we  had  of  it,  tum- 
bling down,  and  at  every  step  up  to  our  knees  in  the  sand. 

HOMEWARD   WITH    AN   EMPTY    POCKET-BOOK    AND   A   GLAD 

HEART. 

Paris,  May  14,  1844.  Why,  you  will  ask,  are  you  not  already 
off  and  out  upon  the  Atlantic,  making  for  home  ?  Well,  the  ves- 
sels for  the  15th  and  16th  were  third-rate  affairs,  and  I  should 
have  been  booked,  perhaps,  for  fifty  days,  with  poor  accommoda- 
tions and  no  company.  Then  the  Argo  was  to  leave  on  the  24th, 
the  finest  and  fastest  ship  that  goes  out  of  the  Havre,  and  already 
some  very  agreeable  people  had  taken  passage  in  her.  Moreover, 


LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1841-1844.  113 

this  arrangement  would  give  me  time  to  see  Paris.  So  that,  in 
short,  finally,  and  to  conclude,  without  exhortation  or  farther  prac- 
tical observation,  I  beg  leave  to  announce,  with  infinite  joy,  that  I 
have  taken  passage  in  this  ship,  to  wit,  the  Argo,  Captain  An- 
thony, which  leaves  Havre,  wind  and  weather  permitting,  on  the 
24th  this  current  month.  Now  I  have  only  to  hope  and  pray  for 
favorable  winds  and  good  weather,  that  I  may  have  a  short  and 
safe  passage  home.  My  money  is  dreadfully  out  at  the  elbows, 
and  indeed  everywhere  else.  I  am  afraid  I  shall  land  at  New 
York  without  money  enough  to  get  me  to  Boston  !  If  you  could 
come  on  to  New  York  about  the  24th  June,  it  would  be  very  nice. 
I  will  go  to  the  Waverley  House,  Broadway,  or,  if  that  good  old 
house  is  no  more,  then  to  the  Astor,  but  I  shan't  stop  one  moment 
in  New  York  if  I  can  help  it. 


DIARY  AND  LETTERS  WRITTEN  DURING  A  VISIT 
TO  EUROPE  IN   1857. 

ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC    IN    SEARCH    OF   HEALTH. 

(From  a  Letter.) 

ADELPHI  HOTEL,  LIVERPOOL,  24th  March,  1857. 

MOST  thankful  and  rejoiced  am  I  to  get  on  terra  firma  again,  to 
sit  down  to  a  table  where  things  are  not  tumbling  and  rolling  and 
pitching  and  threatening  a  general  smash-up.  The  voyage  has 
given  me  strength  and  vigor  such  as  I  have  not  had  for  a  long 
time ;  it  has  given  me  appetite  and  courage,  —  courage  to  eat  and 
to  walk  and  go  about  and  keep  about,  and  feel  I  need  not  be  so 
afraid  of  fever  turns  and  the  like.  I  kept  on  deck,  on  the  saloon 
deck,  nearly  the  whole  voyage,  and  sometimes  stayed  through 
squalls  of  hail  and  snow.  It  was  the  best  place  close  by  the 
smoke -pipe,  that  huge  red  thing  by  which  we  stood  together. 
There  I  got  fresh  air,  and  indeed  gales  of  wind  on  one  side,  and 
on  the  other  warm  air  as  from  a  fire,  and  the  floor  below  me  so 
nicely  heated  from  the  pipe  as  to  keep  my  feet  just  right.  You 
would  have  laughed  to  see  me  there,  coat  buttoned  and  shawl 
around  and  cap  close  down,  now  breasting  the  wind  and  taking  in 
the  air,  and  then  turning  about  to  hug  the  smoke-pipe.  On  one 
night  we  had  a  perfect  hurricane  of  four  hours'  length,  during 
which  the  sea  carried  away,  or  rather  stove  in,  a  part  of  our  bul- 
warks on  one  side.  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  sleep  through  it  all, 
though  it  was  a  very  uneasy  sleep. 

LONDON   HOTELS   AND   LONDON   CROWDS. 

(From  a  Letter.) 

MORLEY'S  HOTEL,  LONDON,  27th  March,  1857. 

Here  I  sit  in  the  writing  and  reading  room  of  this  hotel,  with 
that  fine  Nelson  statue  looking  down  upon  me,  and  am  thinking 
how  far  off  you  are  from  me.  I  got  on  nicely  from  Liverpool  by 
rail,  despite  a  little  headache.  Such  comfortable  cars  and  seats, 
six  seats  in  the  car,  capacious,  divided  by  elbow  cushions,  and 


DIARY  AND   LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  115 

stuffed  partitions  almost  up  to  the  top  of  the  car,  so  that  each 
seat  is  really  an  independent  easy-chair ;  and  with  my  habit  of 
sleeping  in  a  chair,  I  was  as  well  off  as  possible.  On  arriving  we 
got  into  a  cab  and  made  for  this  hotel,  where  we  arrived  at  about 
ten  P.  M.  They  have  capital  arrangements  at  the  station.  Your 
luggage  is  taken  down  from  the  top  of  the  car  by  the  conductor, 
or  rather  the  guard  ;  he  finds  you  a  cab,  brings  the  cabman,  puts 
you  and  yours  in,  and  then  tells  the  man  where  to  go,  and  you  are 
off.  The  cabmen  are  the  company's,  and  never  shout  to  you  or 
say  a  word,  till  the  guard  himself  comes.  How  much  better  than 
the  uproar  in  our  depots.  Yesterday  was  a  great  day  with  me,  — 
bright  and  pleasant  in  the  forenoon,  and  I  improved  it  on  the 
driver's  seat  on  an  omnibus,  riding  in  all  about  seven  miles.  I 
went  to  St.  John's  Wood,  saw  the  new  college,  a  fine  building, 
beautifully  situated,  and  found  Dr.  William  Smith  (the  diction- 
ary man),  who  received  me  very  cordially  and  wished  me  to  stop 
and  dine  with  him,  which  I  declined.  He  is  a  very  gentlemanly 
man,  regular  English,  but  not  like  my  idea  of  the  independent 
dissenters,  to  which  denomination  he  and  the  new  college  belong. 
I  am  very  comfortable  in  this  hotel,  with  all  things  as  I  could 
desire  them.  From  what  I  can  judge,  too,  the  prices  are  not  so 
high  as  I  had  feared  in  England.  At  Liverpool  it  was  37£  cents 
for  bed,  50  for  breakfast  with  meat,  and  37^  for  tea,  and  the 
dinner  50  or  more,  according  to  what  you  take,  and  fees  for  ser- 
vants about  50  cents  per  day.  My  room  was  very  comfortable, 
large,  with  a  double  bed  curtained  and  canopied,  and  every  possible 
convenience.  Here  I  am  about  as  well  off,  and  with  prices  not 
much  higher.  I  sit  in  the  coffee-room,  or  here  in  a  nice  place  for 
reading  and  writing,  a  fire  in  the  grate,  with  the  blazing  coal, 
materials  for  writing  all  at  hand,  and  guide-books,  maps,  etc.,  all 
about  me.  When  not  engaged  I  have  sights  enough  from  the 
windows  to  interest  and  amuse  me.  What  a  world  is  this  Lon- 
don !  —  such  a  streaming  population  of  human  beings  of  all  ranks 
and  occupations  and  characters,  driving,  jostling,  and  pushing  on, 
I  wonder  where  and  for  what,  and  with  what  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings, and  hopes  and  fears,  and  loves  and  hates,  throbbing  and 
working  within  their  heads  and  hearts  !  Those  cabmen  over  the 
way  in  a  long  line  with  whips  up  and  on  the"  lookout  for  a  pas- 
senger —  I  wonder  if  they  have  happy  homes,  and  a  wife  and  chil- 
dren to  welcome  them  after  their  rushing  drives  through  the  noisy 
thoroughfares  of  the  city.  I  wonder  if  they  think  of  much  be- 


116  DIARY   AND   LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1857. 

yond  their  sixpences  and  shillings,  and  stretch  their  hopes  and 
faith  beyond  this  world  to  the  promised  blessedness  and  purity  of 
heaven.  I  dare  say  there  are  some  good  happy  Christians  among 
them,  though  they  are  thought  to  be  a  hard,  godless  set.  I  have 
found  them  well-disposed  and  merry,  though  willing  enough  to 
get  an  extra  sixpence.  And  so  with  that  throng  of  gay  fashion 
and  nobility  and  wealth  that  I  saw  yesterday  at  Hyde  Park.  As 
I  looked  into  the  carriages  as  they  passed  me  —  and  the  carriages 
come  close  to  you  and  are  quite  low,  with  windows  down  —  1  won- 
dered what  those  faces,  of  all  features  and  expressions  and  all 
ages,  meant  and  might  reveal  if  one  could  look  within  and  read 
the  heart  and  character.  Some  looked  happy,  but  I  thought 
many  were  very  dull-looking  folks,  and  trying  very  hard  to  have 
a  good  time.  A  few  rosy,  fresh  faces  of  young  girls  and  children 
really  were  quite  a  relief  to  the  old-young  gentlemen  and  faded 
dowagers,  setting  up  still  for  middle-aged  and  young.  Still  the 
English  face,  especially  of  the  men,  and  I  noticed  it  most  in  the 
foot-walks  and  in  the  horseback  riders,  is  fresh-looking,  robust,  and 
healthy.  I  noticed  it,  too,  in  the  cars,  and  almost  envied  some  of 
those  comfortable-looking  fellows,  who  seemed  to  be  strangers  to 
all  sorts  of  aches  and  feeblenesses.  But  perhaps  they,  too,  have 
their  troubles  and  ills.  But  what  is  all  this  to  you  and  me,  when 
I  am  writing  to  you  or  trying  to  talk  to  you  across  that  ocean  of 
three  thousand  miles.  Ah,  if  the  telegraph  or  some  other  scien- 
tific wonder  would  only  sharpen  my  eyes  and  ears,  and  give  them 
range  enough  to  let  me  see  you  and  know  that  all  is  going  well  at 
home !  When  these  weeks  and  months  of  this  interval  are  gone, 
and  have  brought  me  all  of  health  and  strength  that  I  look  for, 
with  accessions  of  knowledge  as  well  as  of  the  experience  of  God's 
goodness  and  mercy,  what  joy  shall  we  have  in  my  return  to  our 
happy  home. 

THE    GREAT    EASTERN. — THE    THAMES    TUNNEL.  —  THE  DR. 
JOHNSON   "  COFFEE-HOUSE." 

Saturday,  March  28,  1857.  Much  better,  and  have  done  some 
sight-seeing.  By  omnibus  to  Waterloo  Bridge  ;  then  took  a  little 
steamer  down  the  Thames  about  three  miles ;  then  put  ashore  in 
a  boat  at  the  shipyard  where  the  Great  Eastern  is  building.  She 
loomed  up  from  the  river  side  in  enormous  proportions.  We  found 
ourselves  disappointed  about  the  time  for  seeing  the  ship,  but  by 
dint  of  a  little  perseverance  got  attached  to  a  party,  and  thus 


DIARY  AND   LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  117 

shown  all  over  the  ship.  It  is  immense,  pro-d-i-g-i-o-u-s  in  all  its 
conception  and  details  of  execution,  and  impresses  one  with  amaze- 
ment at  the  wonders  of  science,  and  also  the  audacious  enterprise 
and  scheming  of  man.  Almost  700  feet  long  as  she  now  rests  on 
her  supports,  with  ten  saloons,  five  smoke-pipes,  paddle-wheels 
over  100  feet  in  diameter.  Will  accommodate  4,000  passengers, 
and  carry  (without  passengers)  10,000  troops.  She  is  for  the 
Australian  service.  Took  a  boatman  and  sailed  up  as  far  as  the 
Thames  Tunnel ;  went  through  it  and  back,  all  lighted  with  gas 
and  alive  with  crowds  of  people,  little  shops,  music  going  on,  and 
all  deep  down  below  the  tide  of  trade  and  commerce  of  the 
Thames.  As  the  steamer  was  long  coming,  we  took  another  boat- 
man, who  rowed  us  to  Waterloo  Bridge.  These  bridges  are  mag- 
nificent lines  of  arches,  and  look  very  imposing  from  the  river ; 
also  the  buildings,  as  the  Tower  and  many  others.  Then  we 
walked  up  to  the  Strand  and  Fleet  Street,  and  went  to  Bolt  Court 
and  dined  at  the  "  Dr.  Johnson,"  the  veritable  house  and  room 
where  Johnson,  Goldsmith,  and  the  rest  used  to  sit  together.  Two 
immense  portraits  in  the  coffee-room,  one  of  Johnson,  the  other 
of  Goldsmith.  If  the  old  bear  were  now  alive  he  could  get  much 
better  fare  in  London  at  many  a  place  I  could  show  him,  if  our 
dinner  was  a  fair  specimen  of  the  table. 

AN  INVALID'S  SUNDAY  IN  LONDON.  —  SPURGEON'S  CHAPEL   AND 

SERMON. 

Sunday,  March  29,  1857.  Woke  up  with  cold  worse,  and  with 
headache.  Gave  up  going  to  Surrey  Gardens  to  hear  Mr.  Spur- 
geon.  Abed  nearly  all  the  forenoon,  and  much  better  for  it,  so 
that  at  twelve  I  had  a  good  appetite  for  breakfast.  Having 
learned  that  Mr.  Spurgeon  preached  in  his  own  chapel,  New  Park 
Street,  Southwark,  at  half  past  six,  I  determined  to  go,  though  we 
had  no  tickets,  a  limited  number  of  which  is  issued  gratis,  on 
account  of  the  crowds  that  come  to  hear  him.  Took  a  cab  and 
went  a  Sabbath-day's  journey,  wellnigh,  and  drew  up  just  at 
dusk  in  a  narrow,  dark  street,  at  a  very  indifferent  looking  chapel, 
standing  a  little  back  from  the  sidewalk.  People  already  stand- 
ing at  the  doors  as  if  at  a  concert-room  or  theatre,  for  doors  to 
open.  I  asked  the  policeman  in  attendance,  who  demanded  my 
ticket,  if  any  of  the  deacons  or  church  people  were  about,  and 
presently  some  one  came  along  to  whom  he  directed  me.  I  told 
my  story  and  soon  got  in  with  my  party  to  the  yard,  where  after  a 


118  DIARY   AND   LETTERS  FROM   EUROPE,  1857. 

little  waiting  the  doors  were  opened  and  we  made  our  way  into 
the  chapel,  a  most  uninviting,  dark-looking  room,  with  nothing  to 
impress  or  attract  one.  The  seats  for  such  comers  as  we  were  lim- 
ited, and  not  in  the  pews,  but  just  outside  the  pews,  and  as  the 
knowing  ones  made  their  way  in  quick,  we  found  none  left,  except 
just  under  the  pulpit.  People  who  owned  or  hired  seats  and  pews 
soon  began  to  come  in  very  thick  and  with  no  solemnity  or  deco- 
rum at  all.  All  was  just  as  at  a  concert  or  a  lecture,  during  the 
interval  before  the  exercises  opened.  There  was  talking  and 
laughing,  quite  loud,  and  persons  about  me  were  talking  over  fam- 
ily matters,  the  news  of  the  day,  etc.  We  had  like  to  have  had 
a  bit  of  a  scene  too,  as  some  gas  escaped  from  one  of  the  burners 
in  the  gallery  and  took  fire  with  a  considerable  explosion  and 
some  smoking,  so  that  for  a  moment  all  were  rushing  for  the 
doors  with  great  alarm.  But  soon  all  grew  quiet,  and  for  the 
next  ten  minutes  the  carpenter  was  at  work  repairing  something 
or  other  with  hammer  and  nails  with  the  utmost  coolness  as 
though  in  his  own  shop.  The  opening  was  anything  but  edifying. 
Then  appeared  the  minister  through  the  crowd  near  us,  and 
walked  slowly  up  the  pulpit  stairs  close  by,  —  rather  a  stout, 
square-built  man  as  he  seemed  to  me  in  passing,  with  a  heavy 
face,  and  quite  inexpressive  of  the  ability  and  the  remarkable 
gift  for  popular  speaking  which  I  found  he  had.  He  has  light 
complexion  and  light  brown  hair,  I  should  say,  and  his  appear- 
ance in  general,  in  dress,  etc.,  quite  nice  and  well  looked  to.  The 
hair  especially  seemed  quite  well  arranged.  He  commenced  the 
service  with  reading  a  very  long  hymn,  in  a  voice  of  large  compass 
and  variety  of  sound,  and  though  not  rich,  yet  rather  agreeable 
and  impressive.  Reading  very  good  and  surely  such  as  would 
interest ;  he  seemed  to  feel  what  the  hymn  said,  and,  as  I  after- 
ward noticed  from  the  sermon,  was  already  in  the  hymn  interested 
in  the  subject  he  was  to  preach  upon.  After  the  hymn,  which  was 
sung  without  organ  or  other  accompaniment  by  the  congregation, 
he  read  a  few  verses  with  a  very  full  exposition  or  rather  para- 
phrase, so  that  one  hardly  knew  when  he  was  reading  or  when  he 
was  speaking  ;  the  language  was  quite  biblical,  and  flowed  without 
any  break  or  hesitation  and  without  the  change  of  a  word,  though 
he  had  no  notes.  (During  the  hymn,  windows  behind  the  pulpit 
were  broken  by  stones  thrown  from  the  street.  He  stopped  after 
a  verse,  and  told  the  audience  the  evil  would  soon  be  remedied 
by  the  police.)  After  the  hymn  he  said  he  would  depart  from 


DIARY  AND   LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  119 

his  practice,  and  call  upon  some  one  to  pray,  and  so  called  upon 
one  of  his  deacons,  who  offered  a  very  appropriate  and  fervent 
prayer.  Then  another  hymn,  and  then  the  sermon.  Before  the 
text,  he  begged  the  people  about  the  pulpit  and  in  the  aisles  to 
keep  quiet  as  possible,  saying  that  "  he  had  felt  himself  so  oscil- 
lating to  and  fro  with  the  surge  that  he  had  become  quite  dis- 
concerted, and  had  wellnigh  lost  every  thought  out  of  his  head,  so 
that  he  was  not  in  condition  to  lead  the  devotions  of  the  congre- 
gation." He  then  announced  his  text,  Hosea  ii.  16  and  17  :  "And 
it  shall  be  at  that  day,  saith  the  Lord,  that  thou  shalt  call  me 
Ishi,  and  thou  shalt  call  me  no  more  Baali.  For  I  will  take  away 
the  names  of  Baalim  out  of  her  mouth,  and  they  shall  no  more  be 
remembered  by  their  name."  He  should  draw  three  or  four  les- 
sons from  this  text,  and  should  proceed  to  them  without  preface 
or  prelude.  The  first  lesson  rested  upon  the  words  thou  shalt 
and  thou  shalt  no  more  call,  etc. ;  and  exhibited  in  its  stiffest 
Calvinistic  form  the  doctrine  of  God's  electing  grace.  It  was 
quite  apart  and  independent  of  men's  wills  that  they  were  sanc- 
tified and  saved.  The  Bible  talked  of  God's  sovereign  will,  not 
of  the  human  will ;  of  what  God  would  do  and  what  He  would  not 
do.  Your  will  may  be  shut  up  against  God,  but  He  has  the  key  to 
open  it ;  your  heart  may  be  hard  and  desperately  set  on  mischief 
and  wickedness,  but  God  has  a  hammer  with  which  to  break  and 
soften  it  to  humility  and  love ;  your  knee  may  be  stiff  and  stout, 
and  you  may  say  you  will  not  bow  and  pray,  but  God  can  bend 
it  and  bring  you  to  his  feet  in  lowliest  penitence.  It 's  of  no 
use  for  you  to  say  you  are  not  willing,  and  therefore  can't  be 
saved,  God  will  make  you  willing.  What,  you  ask,  when  I  am 
unwilling  ?  No,  not  in  your  unwillingness  will  you  be  converted, 
but  God's  spirit  will  make  you  willing.  You  may  come  in  here 
to-night  all  set  against  God,  and  determined  you  won't  love  and 
serve  Him,  and  "  nilly- willy,"  if  He  has  the  sovereign  purpose  to 
save  you,  you  will  go  home  humbled  and  renewed  in  heart  and 
mind.  And  this  was  a  glorious  doctrine  for  which  the  preacher 
blessed  God,  and  for  which  Christian  people  could  not  too  much 
adore  and  praise  Him. 

The  second  lesson  was  this :  when  God's  spirit  sanctifies  a 
man,  he  makes  thorough  work  of  it.  When  God  says  to  a  man, 
Thou  shalt  call  me  no  more  Baali,  but  shalt  call  me  Ishi,  then, 
after  that,  the  man  becomes  one  of  God's  children,  —  no  longer  a 
sinner  without  hope,  but  a  saint  blessed  by  the  renewing  grace  of 


120  DIARY   AND   LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1857. 

God.  And  his  renewal  will  be  thorough,  continuous,  and  will  go 
on  to  the  day  of  his  entrance  to  the  courts  of  heaven.  What  an 
elevating,  consoling  thought,  that  thus  the  whole  human  character 
shall  by  God's  grace  be  renovated  till  it  becomes  free  from  every 
stain  or  blemish.  The  preacher  remarked  that  the  Jews,  after 
being  called  of  God  to  the  service  of  Jehovah,  were  as  a  nation 
no  longer  idolaters.  They  became  thoroughly  quit  of  the  sin  of 
idolatry,  and  never  could  abide  the  idolatrous  practices  of  the 
Gentiles.  So  he  had  noticed  that  a  Christian  after  his  conversion 
became  especially  set  against  any  particular  form  of  sin  to  which 
he  had  been  addicted.  If  he  had  been  intemperate,  he  could  not 
be  tempted  to  touch  or  tolerate  anything  that  would  intoxicate ; 
if  a  Sabbath  breaker,  he  would  become  a  most  punctilious  rigid 
Puritan  the  world  ever  saw.  And  now  to  think  that  thus  God's 
people  will  be  sanctified  thoroughly  ;  not  freed  from  one  sin  only, 
but  every  form  of  sin  ;  not  only  made  pure,  but  they  could  never 
become  impure ;  so  without  spot  or  stain  that  they  could  never 
become  stained  or  spotted  by  sin.  He  had  often  thought  that  a 
saint's  first  day  in  heaven  would  be  one  of  utter  wonder  and 
amazement.  We  shall  be  amazed  that  there  is  now  no  sin  to 
fight  with,  no  spiritual  enemies  to  guard  against ;  to  find  every- 
thing holy,  and  God's  service  a  pure  delight  with  nothing  to  mar 
or  blemish.  So  will  it  be,  you  poor  Christian,  who  art  now  trou- 
bled with  sin  ;  if  God's  grace  sanctify  you  it  will  sanctify  you 
wholly ;  God's  grace  will  make  clean  work  in  the  renovation  of  a 
human  soul,  and  heaven  will  receive  you  holy  and  pure,  free  from 
all  sin.  Is  n't  this  something  to  bless  God  for  ?  What  love  in 
such  redeeming  grace  !  Bless  God  for  all  this,  and  be  assured 
He  will  carry  on  to  perfection  his  work  of  grace. 

The  third  lesson  the  preacher  wished  everybody  to  listen  to, 
and  especially  the  young  and  young  Christians,  viz. :  Many  things 
not  bad  in  themselves  must  be  shunned  by  a  good  man,  because 
associated  with  bad  things.  Nothing  wrong  in  itself  in  the  word 
Baali ;  God  had  used  it  himself  in  several  places  as  a  title  for 
himself  to  be  used  by  his  people.  But  the  heathen  had  used  it 
for  idol  gods,  and  so  it  became  associated  with  bad  things ;  and 
so  a  good  Jew  could  not  use  it  of  God,  though  he  might  perhaps 
not  hurt  his  own  conscience,  because  it  was  connected  with  idol 
worship,  and  might  lead  others  astray.  So  now  with  many  things 
not  bad  per  se,  but  bad  in  their  associations  and  consequences,  in 
their  influence  by  example  upon  others.  A  young  man  says  card- 


DIARY  AND   LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  121 

playing  don't  hurt  me  any ;  I  am  just  as  good  a  Christian  if  I 
have  a  nice  little  game  of  whist  with  my  friends ;  of  course  this 
is  n't  wrong,  and  of  course  I  shall  do  it.  But  card-playing  is  the 
world  over  connected  with  gambling,  which  is  a  very  bad  vice,  and 
you,  young  man,  who  call  yourself  a  Christian,  and  want  to  do 
good  in  the  world,  —  you  had  better  not  talk  about  the  innocence 
of  this  thing  for  you,  when  it  has  led  to  the  ruin  of  thousands. 
(Gambling  always  reminded  him  of  the  shocking  scene  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross,  where  the  soldiers  shook  their  dice  in  gambling 
for  Christ's  raiment.  He  always  fancied  he  saw  those  soldiers 
and  heard  those  rattling  dice,  while  above  them  hung  the  Son 
of  God,  dying  to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world.)  And  so  of 
going  to  horse-races,  of  opera-going,  and  theatres,  etc.  You  may 
argue  that  per  se  they  are  not  bad,  but  they  are  connected  with 
bad  things,  and  you  must  shun  them.  Suppose  a  Jew  in  the  tem- 
ple, and  a  heathen  standing  near  him.  The  Jew  calls  upon  God 
as  Baali.  What  I  says  the  heathen,  that  venerable  Jew  yonder, 
he  calls  upon  Baali  and  worships  him  as  his  God ;  certainly  he 
can't  call  me  an  idolater,  or  call  idolatry  wrong  and  a  bad  thing. 
My  dear  fellow,  replies  the  Jew,  you  don't  understand  my  wor- 
ship at  all ;  I  don't  worship  idols.  Yes,  but  you  call  your  God 
Baali,  and  that 's  the  name  of  my  God,  too.  But,  my  dear  sir, 
you  don't  distinguish  ;  I  don't  worship  that  wooden  thing  you 
have  stuck  up  in  your  temple  and  call  your  god ;  I  worship  Jeho- 
vah, the  Almighty,  and  the  one  God  of  my  fathers.  But  the 
heathen  goes  away  without  understanding.  The  Jew  had  better 
shun  the  name  Baali  and  call  upon  Jehovah.  Shun  all  things 
that  lead  to  what  is  bad,  even  if  they  are  not  of  themselves  bad. 
He  spoke  of  the  case  of  Rowland  Hill  hearing  that  some  members 
of  his  church  went  to  the  theatre,  and  following  them  there,  and 
hailing  them  in  one  of  the  boxes,  and  said  he  should  do  the  same, 
and  turn  them  out,  too,  after  he  had  got  home.  Also  an  anecdote 
of  a  lady  who  wanted  a  coachman ;  three  came  in  succession,  and 
she  asked  each  how  near  he  could  drive  to  danger.  The  first  said, 
Why,  madam,  I  think  within  a  yard  of  it,  and  go  clear.  Ah, 
said  she,  you  are  no  coachman  for  me.  The  second  said,  I  can 
come  close  upon  it  and  yet  suffer  no  harm.  You  will  never  do  for 
me,  said  she.  The  third  replied,  Why,  madam,  that 's  something 
I  never  tried  ;  when  I  see  danger  ahead,  I  just  shun  it  and  keep 
as  far  away  as  possible.  You  are  the  coachman  for  me,  she  said, 
and  took  him  at  once. 


122  DIAKY   AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857. 

The  fourth  and  last  lesson  rested  on  the  distinction  between 
the  names  Ishi  and  Baali,  as  synonyms  for  husband,  and  unfolded 
the  love  shown  by  God  to  his  chosen  people.  Ishi,  a  term  of  en- 
dearment, which  a  wife  would  use  "  as  a  fondling  term  in  softer 
moments  of  conjugal  life ;  "  Baali,  meaning  lord,  master,  when 
the  husband  had  been  rather  sharp  in  his  words,  and  had  practi- 
cally claimed  in  his  demeanor  something  of  the  lordship  belonging 
to  man.  Jehovah,  therefore,  in  his  condescending  love,  says,  "  Thou 
shalt  call  me  Ishi,  and  no  more  Baali."  I  will  be  a  loving  hus- 
band to  you,  not  a  despotic  master.  And  so  may  the  Christian 
especially,  by  the  redeeming  love  of  Christ,  draw  nigh  to  God  as  a 
God  full  of  love,  and  call  Him  by  endearing  names,  having  no 
more  the  spirit  of  bondage  unto  fear,  but  the  spirit  of  adoption, 
awakening  love  and  fullest  confidence. 

The  sermon  closed  with  an  impressive  and  glowing  exhibition 
of  the  privileges  of  a  renewed  soul  in  this  near  and  affectionate 
relation,  and  the  fearful  condition  of  a  sinner  who  can  look  to  God 
with  no  feelings  but  those  of  fear  and  terror.  And  if  such  be  the 
contrast  here  on  earth,  how  infinitely  greater  will  it  be  in  the 
other  world ! 

The  whole  sermon  was  preached  without  any  notes ;  with  entire 
fluency  and  self-command,  and  kept  the  interested  attention  of 
the  crowded  audience  to  the  very  close.  A  great  preacher  for 
uneducated  masses,  who  have  no  tastes  to  offend,  no  sense  of  de- 
corum and  propriety  of  manner  or  language  to  make  them  obser- 
vant and  critical,  and  who  are  willing  to  take,  along  with  the  hon- 
est and  well-applied  truth,  telling  anecdotes  and  illustrations,  and 
even  striking  jests,  that  will  entertain  as  well  as  instruct,  even  if 
they  make  them  smile  or  laugh.  But  not  a  first-class  pulpit  ora- 
tor, in  my  judgment ;  culture  quite  insufficient,  even  very  moder- 
ate ;  but  great  energy  and  force  ;  great  natural  gifts  for  speaking, 
and  apparently  much  sincerity  and  love  for  the  gospel  and  the 
business  of  preaching  it ;  though  certainly  these  not  unmixed  — 
so  far  as  one's  impressions  are  a  standard — with  a  kind  of  profes- 
sional feeling ;  a  feeling  that  he  has  a  certain  place  to  keep,  and 
a  fame  to  make  and  keep  as  a  great  preacher.  I  am  sure  I  should 
not  take  so  much  pains  to  hear  him  a  second,  as  I  did  this  first 
time,  and  should  decline  decidedly  having  him  for  my  minister, 
whom  I  must  hear  every  Sunday. 


DIARY   AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  123 


QUIET   IN    LONDON. — ENGLISH   POLITICS. 

Monday,  March  30,  1857.  Strolled  about  Fleet  Street,  and 
went  into  the  Middle  Temple  and  Inner  Temple,  near  Temple  Bar, 
through  alleys  and  courts  innumerable ;  some  of  them  quite  large 
and  extended,  and  all  clear  and  perfectly  quiet,  though  so  close  by 
the  stir  of  the  great  babel  of  the  city. 

Took  a  cab  and  called  on  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  53  Harley  Street, 
and  delivered  a  print  of  Professor  Wyman,  handed  me  by  Dr. 
Gould.  Had  a  pleasant  call.  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  a  man  about 
sixty,  gray  hair,  and  stoops  a  little,  but  full  of  intelligence  in  his 
conversation,  though  rather  passionless,  and  wanting  in  vivacity. 
Inquired  about  Dr.  Gould,  Professor  Wyman,  Professor  Agassiz 
and  his  work ;  also  about  the  "  Dred  Scott "  case.  Was  very 
much  pleased  with  Mr.  Dallas,  as  he  had  been  with  Buchanan, 
whom  he  had  known  very  well.  Thought  the  elections  looked  bad 
for  England,  as  Palmerston,  he  thought,  had  missed  it,  especially 
in  bringing  the  Russian  war  so  soon  to  an  end.  I  have  been  very 
much  interested  in  England  in  observing  the  usage  at  elections, 
and  the  sensible  and  also  rapid  way  in  which  such  business  is  ad- 
justed. The  Saturday  before  we  landed  at  Liverpool  (March  21) 
Parliament  was  dissolved,  and  decrees  issued  for  new  elections 
throughout  the  kingdom,  and  the  week  we  have  been  in  London 
the  elections  have  all  come  off,  and  in  many  parts  of  Great  Brit- 
ain. Palmerston  appealed  to  the  country  from  Parliament  rather 
than  resign,  having  been  in  a  minority  on  the  Chinese  war,  a  vote 
of  censure  having  been  passed  for  the  conduct  of  it  by  the  minis- 
ters. Thus  far  the  country  goes  for  Palmerston,  and  against  those 
who  censured,  and  he  is  likely  to  come  in  again  as  premier,  with  a 
large  majority.  The  party  for  peace,  Cobden,  Bright,  etc.,  are  all 
down  with  the  people,  and  both  these  famous  leaders  are  ousted 
by  new  men,  quite  unknown.  There  will  be  a  large  number  of 
quite  new  members  in  Parliament,  a  thing  to  be  regretted,  as 
there  is  to  be  a  new  speaker.  Lefevre  had  been  speaker  sixteen 
years,  admirably  fitted  for  his  duties,  by  universal  agreement,  by 
long  experience,  as  well  as  natural  abilities  and  tact  and  know- 
ledge of  parliamentary  rules.  He  retires  to  a  peerage  (Viscount 
Eversly)  and  a  large  pension.  Dispatched  Everett's  Discourses 
to  Dr.  Whewell,  Dr.  Hawtrey,  and  Sir  John  Herschel,  by  mail, 
sending  a  letter  with  them. 


124  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857. 

CROSSING   THE   CHANNEL. 

Tuesday,  March  31.  Left  London  at  8.15  for  Folkestone  and 
Boulogne  and  Paris.  Got  nicely  located ;  four  of  us  in  a  first- 
class  car,  very  comfortable  in  all  respects,  so  that  if  it  had  been 
night  I  could  have  slept  the  whole  way.  Reached  Folkestone  at 
11.30 ;  a  queer  old  place,  but  it  rained,  and  I  kept  close.  Low 
tide,  and  we  waited  till  12.45,  when  we  got  under  way  in  the  steam- 
boat for  Boulogne,  by  the  Channel.  Rainy,  cloudy,  sleety,  foggy, 
and  everything  else  disagreeable,  and  the  boat  pitched  and  rolled 
about  like  a  cockle-shell.  Wrapped  in  shawls  and  sailor's  India- 
rubber  clothes,  I  sat  by  the  smoke-pipe  again  (though  not  so  nice 
;i  one  as  the  Niagara's)  all  the  way,  with  no  fear  of  rain  or  storm 
before  my  eyes,  though  it  was  cold  and  uncomfortable,  but  better 
than  down  below.  When  two  thirds  the  way  across,  and  England 
was  therefore  quite  behind  us,  the  fog  and  clouds  disappeared, 
and  the  sun  shone  out  bright,  and  the  air  was  most  refreshing  and 
exhilarating.  So  England  vs.  France  ;  fogs  and  damps  and  rains 
for  sunshine  and  fresh  air.  We  landed  at  three  p.  M.,  and  were 
marched  off  the  wharf  to  the  custom-house,  between  two  lines  of 
ropes,  behind  which  were  lots  of  people,  some  looking  for  friends, 
and  others  only  gazing  for  fun ;  and  then  in  a  cue  went  in  and 
showed  passports,  and  then  had  luggage  examined.  We  had  an 
agent  with  us  accustomed  to  the  business,  who  drove  us  through 
all  the  paces  at  double-quick  time,  and  then  got  us  to  a  Hotel 
Bedford,  just  in  time  to  get  "  a  hasty  plate  of  soup  "  and  a  bit  of 
roast  chicken  for  supper ;  and  then  a  rush  for  the  cars  again, 
which  we  reached  in  season  for  the  train  for  Paris.  Got  into  nice 
cars  again,  though  not  quite  equal  to  the  English ;  and  here  began 
at  last,  in  good  earnest,  French  voices  and  French  speaking.  We 
had  in  our  car  an  English  gentleman  who  was  very  communicative 
and  interesting  in  conversation,  well  acquainted,  too,  with  Amer- 
ica, and  we  found  at  last  that  he  was  the  head  of  the  house  of  the 
Barings,  —  Sir  Francis  Baring. 

SUNDAY   IN   PARIS. 

Sunday,  April  5,  1857.  Sunday  in  Paris ;  but  my  Bible  here 
and  God  here,  and  access  to  Him  by  meditation  and  prayer.  I 
thought  of  all  at  home.  Especially  the  Sunday-school  was  in  my 
thoughts  and  my  heart,  and  I  felt  myself  there  in  spirit  at  least, 
as,  too,  I  did  with  my  own  dear  family  at  different  hours  of  the 


DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  125 

day.  Blessings  be  with  them  all  this  day,  and  on  the  teachers, 
officers,  and  all  the  members  of  the  school  from  the  oldest  down 
to  the  youngest  in  the  infant  class.  I  love  and  think  of  them  all, 
and  pray  God  to  shed  upon  them  ever  the  selectest  influences  of 
his  grace  and  love.  In  the  evening  went  to  Evangelical  Chapel, 
54  Eue  de  Provence,  to  hear  Rev.  Dr.  Kirk.  A  neat,  commodious 
chapel,  quite  back  from  the  street,  and  deliciously  quiet,  though 
in  the  midst  of  noisy  thoroughfares.  Was  surprised  to  find  so 
small  a  congregation,  certainly  not  over  a  hundred ;  the  seats 
were  but  thinly  taken,  and  the  tout  ensemble  had  a  very  cheerless 
aspect.  The  service  was  in  part  the  Episcopal,  as  the  evening 
prayer  service  was  read,  and  afterwards  singing,  then  an  extem- 
pore prayer,  hymn,  sermon,  and  closing  prayer.  The  sermon 
excellent,  adapted  to  the  season  of  Easter,  from  Christ's  words, 
"  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ! "  Some  points 
very  impressive  and  affecting,  and  fitted  to  lead  one  in  renewed 
penitence  and  faith  and  love  to  Christ  the^  Redeemer.  I  was 
never  so  much  pleased  with  Mr.  Kirk,  though  he  is  so  much 
changed  that  I  should  not  have  recognized  him,  except  by  some- 
thing peculiar  in  his  voice.  I  could  not  but  think,  though,  his 
manner  is  not  exactly  what  I  like,  —  a  little  finical,  I  think,  for  a 
minister  of  Christ.  How  much  better  I  liked  his  whole  sermon 
and  preaching  than  Mr.  Spurgeon's. 

VERSAILLES    AND    IMPERIAL   PARAPHERNALIA. 

Saturday,  April  11,  1857.  Versailles  to-day,  and  on  the  whole 
a  great  day  for  it ;  with  the  exception  of  an  hour  or  two,  fine 
weather  all  the  time.  The  railroad  ride  delightful,  the  air  so  soft, 
and  the  country  pleasant  around  us.  At  the  Versailles  station 
came  across  a  commissionaire,  Marchard  by  name,  who  turned  out 
a  trump  of  a  fellow,  familiar  with  the  whole  place,  talking  English, 
and  quite  polite  and  reasonable  withal.  We  took  him,  and  he 
put  us  through  everything  very  handsomely.  Was  amazed  at  the 
splendor  of  this  splendid  Versailles,  its  marble  halls  and  floors, 
and  its  rich  galleries  of  art.  What  a  brilliant  history  of  brilliant 
France  is  sculptured,  painted,  and  inscribed  here  in  paintings, 
busts  and  statues  and  tablets,  from  Louis  XIII.  down  to  the 
reigning  Napoleon  III.  What  a  wonderful  history  of  Napoleon's 
career  does  one  read  here  in  all  these  battle-scenes,  coronations, 
victories,  and  triumphs,  in  his  portraits  as  First  Consul  and  Em- 
peror and  those  of  all  his  great  marshals  and  admirals.  And 


126  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1867. 

what  lessons  of  the  changeful  and  evanescent  character  of  all 
earthly  glory,  the  great  battles  fought  and  won,  the  civil  glories 
attained,  the  brilliant  court  and  great  country  he  made  and  ruled ; 
and  then  his  fall  and  St.  Helena,  and  his  wretched  last  life  there 
in  mortification  and  despair.  And  so  of  the  Louis  before  him,  and 
Charles  the  Tenth,  and  Louis  Philippe  after  him.  And  now  this 
nephew  emperor  here,  and  his  portraits  and  statues  bringing  up 
the  close  to  thil  day,  and  himself  ruling  and  appointing  and  con- 
trolling all  this  splendid  place.  Our  whole  day  was  taken  with 
the  Palace,  and  we  had  but  little  time  to  wander  over  the  gardens, 
and  none  for  the  interior  of  the  Trianon.  We  looked  in  and  saw 
the  state  carriages,  massive  things  enough,  and  all  brilliant  with 
gilded  work.  The  most  splendid  of  them  was  used  the  last  time 
for  the  baptism  occasion  of  the  Prince  Imperial.  Strange  that  a 
Christian  ordinance,  so  simple  in  all  its  original  character  and 
circumstances,  should  require  for  the  child  of  a  Christian  ruler 
such  a  gorgeous  carriage  as  this,  with  all  the  other  brilliant  train 
behind  it,  on  the  way  to  the  church  and  the  baptismal  font ! 
Would  not  the  Saviour  and  his  apostles,  the  early  Christians, 
would  not  John  the  Baptist,  denounce  such  proceedings  with  holy 
indignation ! 

EASTER.  —  MUSIC   VS.   RITUAL. 

April  12th,  Easter  Sunday.  Went  to  St.  Roch  Church,  which 
was  filled  with  people  of  all  classes  and  ages,  who  seemed  at  least 
to  be  there  in  the  spirit  of  worshipers.  At  least  I  felt  that  God, 
who  knows  and  sees  the  heart,  could  alone  distinguish  among  us 
all  who  in  the  church  sought  Him  in  truth  and  loved  his  services 
and  who  cared  for  his  day,  his  word,  and  all  his  commandments. 
Such  music  as  I  heard  there  seemed  full  of  devotion  in  its  influ- 
ence. I  am  sure  that,  although  I  knew  not  at  all  what  was 
chanted  and  sung,  yet  the  music  lifted  my  thoughts  to  God 
and  good  things,  to  heaven  and  its  praises  and  its  holy  services. 
The  bell-ringing,  kneelings.  etc.,  were  utterly  void  of  signifi- 
cance to  me  as  acts  of  worship.  I  had  no  comprehension  of  it 
any  more  than  if  I  had  been  in  a  heathen  temple,  ancient  or 
modern. 

Afterward  went  to  the  Notre  Dame,  which  was  also  well  filled, 
though  high  mass  was  over.  Walked  about  it  and  looked  again 
at  its  grand  old  nave  and  aisles  and  chapels,  which  I  had  not  seen 
for  years.  Rained  hard  most  of  the  morning,  and  I  wondered 


DIARY   AND   LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  127 

how  I  should  have  felt  in  Providence  a  month  ago  walking  about 
in  the  rain. 

BY   RAIL   WHERE   HANNIBAL'S    ARMY   CROSSED. 

Tuesday  and  Wednesday,  April  14  and  15.  En  route  for 
Marseilles  via  Lyons.  Left  Paris  at  11  A.  M.,  dined  at  Dijon, 
and  reached  Lyons  at  9.47  P.  M.,  after  a  very  pleasant  ride. 
Wednesday  left  Lyons  at  8  A.  M.,  had  a  nice  lunch  at  Valence, 
the  old  Valentia  (how  many  times  I  have  gone  through  it  in  my 
Livy  studies  in  my  classes).  Reached  Marseilles  at  4  P.  M.  The 
•  ride  far  pleasanter  than  from  Paris  to  Lyons.  The  Rhone  on  our 
right  a  large  part  of  the  way ;  quite  narrow  for  two  thirds  the  way, 
but  broad  as  we  neared  Marseilles.  Thought  of  Hannibal  and  his 
army,  and  their  crossing  here,  and  fancied  many  a  point,  which 
seemed  to  correspond  with  the  description,  might  have  been  the 
spot  where  he  got  over  by  charging  the  Gauls  on  the  other  side, 
while  the  detachment  he  had  sent  up  the  river  to  cross  at  a  higher 
point  fell  upon  their  rear. 

BY    SEA    AND   LAND   TO   ROME. 

Friday,  April  17.  On  steamer  from  Marseilles  to  Civita 
Vecchia. 

A  wonderfully  fine  day  on  the  Mediterranean,  sky  cloudless, 
and  the  sea  calm  as  a  lake,  and  the  air  soft  as  summer.  We 
were  under  an  awning  all  day.  I  was  up  early  and  on  deck  all 
day.  The  late  hour  of  breakfast,  half  past  nine,  a  great  incon- 
venience, at  least  to  me,  and  then,  too,  nothing  till  the  dinner  at 
five  P.  M.  One  can  have  a  cup  of  black  coffee  early,  but  nothing 
is  expected  to  be  given  with  it.  It  works  very  well  with  the 
company,  especially  in  this  Italian  line,  as  they  stop  at  the  ports, 
Genoa,  Leghorn,  Civita  Vecchia,  in  the  morning  early,  and  people 
go  ashore  at  about  nine,  and  the  company  make  all  their  breakfasts 
clear.  But,  however,  these  cuisine  arrangements  did  not  rob  me 
of  my  enjoyment  of  this  exquisite  day  in  the  Mediterranean. 
How  I  lay  about,  and  strolled  around  the  deck,  and  gazed  at  sky 
and  sea,  and  the  French  and  Ligurian  coast  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  Corsican  on  the  other.  I  thought  how  all  these  waters  had 
been  historic  ground  from  the  earliest  periods  of  history,  traversed 
by  how  many  fleets,  peaceful  and  warlike,  of  how  many  nations, 
ancient  and  modern,  and  the  scenes  of  how  many  voyages,  disastrous 
and  successful,  how  many  engagements,  victories  and  losses  and 


128  DIARY   AND   LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857. 

disgraces.  A  day  I  can  never  forget,  and  if  those  I  love  best  had 
only  been  with  me,  to  drink  in  that  balmy,  genial  air,  and  muse 
together  with  me  over  all  of  the  past  of  the  world's  history ! 

Saturday,  18th.  Slept  well,  and  in  the  morning  rose  early 
from  my  berth,  looked  through  the  little  window  upon  the  sea, 
and  saw  the  glorious  sun  rise  above  it  and  the  Etruscan  shore 
behind  it.  It  was  yet  early  and  we  were  coming  into  Civita 
Vecchia,  a  place  dreaded  by  me  most  intensely  from  my  re- 
membrance of  my  last  visit  to  it,  when  we  had  rows  with  vetturini 
and  loss  of  time  and  patience  and  money.  But  this  time  from 
the  French  steamer  we  got  through  with  no  great  difficulty.  On  , 
disembarking  we  had  given  us  a  printed  paper,  stating  the  fixed 
prices  for  boatmen,  then  for  facchini,  then  for  a  commissionaire 
if  we  wanted  one,  one  franc  for  each,  a  tariff  quite  high  enough. 
At  the  landing  an  agent  of  the  company  was  there  to  receive 
us,  and  see  that  the  boatman  made  no  extra  charge,  and  to  tell 
us  where  to  go  next;  and  then  a  fellow  came  up  and  asked 
me  if  I  wanted  to  go  by  diligence  to  Rome,  whom  I  found  to 
be  a  commissionaire,  or  a  servitore  de  piazza.  He  got  us  our 
tickets  for  the  diligence,  paying  in  advance  himself,  while  we 
were  going  through  the  custom-house  examination,  which  was 
a  farce  (and  no  fee  at  all  necessary  to  hurry  them)  ;  then  went 
about  and  got  our.passports  vised  by  two  or  three  different  people, 
the  American  consul,  among  the  rest,  charging  one  dollar  for 
the  vise;  got  our  baggage  plombed  for  Rome,  and  ourselves 
landed  at  the  Hotel  Orlandi,  for  a  breakfast  ;  for  all  which 
I  thought  he  earned  one  franc  per  head.  We  got  off  for  Rome 
at  ten  o'clock,  and  as  good  luck  would  have  it,  I  had  a  seat 
in  the  coupe  and  the  boys  on  the  banquette  or  coachman's  box. 
We  had  another  superb  day ;  nothing  could  have  been  finer  for 
a  drive  on  our  way  to  Rome.  Only  the  importunate  postilions 
at  the  end  of  each  station,  —  and  it  was  forty-seven  miles,  about 
four  posts,  —  and  then  the  conductor  at  the  end,  were  begging 
for  buono  mano,  I  found  everybody  paid,  even  a  poor-looking 
monk  who  sat  in  the  coupe,  five  baiocchi  or  cents  to  each  postilion, 
and  so  I  fell  in  with  the  rest,  though  vexed  at  such  a  usage. 
But  we  were  going  to  Rome  and  it  was  glorious  weather,  and 
who  would  care  for  postilions,  or  buono  mano,  or  any  such  like 
imposition.  Only  the  people  at  the  city  gates  who  looked  in  at 
the  windows  and  took  my  passport  I  could  n't  be  induced  to 
give  anything  to ;  it  was  too  bare  a  humbug  for  them  to  hold 


DIARY  AND   LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1857.  129 

out  their  beggarly  hands  and  ask  for  qualche  cosa,  a  detestable 
expression.  We  had  had  St.  Peter's  looming  up  before  us  for 
miles,  and  beyond  the  hills  from  Soracte,  round  to  the  Alban 
Mount ;  and  there  was  enough  food  for  thought  without  thinking 
of  the  diligence  and  its  humbugs  ;  and  as  we  quit  the  Porta 
Cavalleggieri  and  the  official  with  hand  outstretched,  we  soon  came 
close  by  the  colonnades  and  piazza  of  St.  Peter's!  What  an 
inspiring  sight !  I  saw  that  the  piazza  was  thronged  with  people, 
and  on  asking  my  monk  neighbor  what  it  meant,  he  told  me 
that  the  illumination  was  coming  off  questa  sera,  as  it  had  been 
postponed  from  Holy  Week  on  account  of  the  tempo  cattivo. 
And  so  I  shouted  to  the  boys,  on  the  banquette,  that  they  had 
got  there  just  in  time  for  this  great  sight  of  a  Roman  Easter 
Wreek.  We  got  through  the  diligence  office  as  soon  as  possible 
and  made  for  the  Hotel  d'Allemagne  ;  and  there  I  was  again, 
crossing  the  Corso,  rushing  up  the  Via  Condotti,  and  stopping 
opposite  Lepri's,  and  near  the  corner  of  the  Piazza  di  Spagna. 
We  got  rooms,  and  then,  admonished  by  the  gargon,  who  told 
us  we  should  be  late,  as  it  was  near  eight  o'clock,  we  hurried 
up  to  the  Pincian  Hill,  it  being  quite  too  late  to  reach  the  Piazza 
of  St.  Peter's.  The  silver  illumination  was  already  to  be  seen, 
and  then,  at  eight  precisely,  all  at  once  the  golden  blaze  of  the 
hundreds  of  lights  broke  out  upon  our  sight,  lighting  up  the 
whole  dome,  and  giving  the  utmost  distinctness  to  all  its  lines 
and  contour,  and  throwing  it  against  the  dark  sky,  a  great,  gigantic 
pile.  What  crowds  were  there  to  gaze ;  what  exclamations  in 
all  tongues,  expressing  the  common  human  surprise  and  delight ! 
And  yet  this  a  religious  ceremony,  and  a  closing  part  of  Holy 
Week! 

THREE  SHORT  DAYS  IN  ROME. 

Rome,  Sunday,  April  19.  Rose  very  early,  and  found  it 
another  charming  day.  Went  with  the  boys  after  breakfast  to 
the  Capitoline  and  thence  to  the  Forum,  showing  them  the  places 
and  objects  of  principal  interest.  All  much  the  same  as  when 
I  was  here  before,  save  that  excavations  have  gone  on  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Forum.  At  eleven  went  to  the  Palazzo  Braschi, 
the  house  of  our  minister ;  and  in  a  hall  there  heard  the  chaplain 
to  the  American  embassy  preach.  A  very  pleasant  place,  and 
perhaps  a  hundred  people  there.  An  excellent  sermon,  "  For 
me  to  live  is  Christ,"  —  very  scriptural  and  faithful  exhibition 
of  the  worldly,  compared  with  the  Christian  life.  Very  good 


130  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857. 

indeed,  and  though  I  missed  somewhat  in  the  devotional  services, 
which  were  Congregational,  yet  all  was  very  edifying  and  most 
agreeable,  and  I  hope  improving  to  me.  I  felt  doubt  as  to  my 
duty  with  the  boys  to-day  as  well  as  myself,  it  being  one  of 
only  four  days  in  Rome.  But  I  walked  with  them,  and  could 
not  think  it  wrong  to  point  out  to  them  for  their  knowledge 
and  education  all  that,  in  locality,  ruins,  etc.,  we  visited  or  saw 
as  we  passed.  The  whole  neighborhood  of  the  Forum  we  walked 
about,  the  arches,  columns,  Coliseum,  Cloaca  Maxima,  and  so  on, 
and  in  such  a  way  that  I  think  they  will  remember  all.  I  was 
more  tried  still  in  the  evening,  for  the  fireworks  —  the  giran- 
dola  —  were  to  come  off  on  the  Pincian,  and  it  was  out  of  the 
question  to  say  No  to  them.  So  I  went  with  them  to  the  Piazza 
del  Popolo,  where  all  was  yet  more  gorgeous,  in  better  taste,  and 
better  appointed  than  years  ago  when  I  saw  them  from  the  St. 
Angelo.  But  I  was  glad  to  get  away,  and  make  to  our  hotel,  and 
to  my  room.  And  so  ended  this  Roman  Sunday.  Oh,  what  a 
different  one  from  an  American,  a  Providence  Sunday.  I 
thought  of  our  Sunday-school,  our  church,  my  own  family  circle, 
and  how  my  spirit  was  with  them  in  all  their  services,  from  the 
morning  to  night.  I  hope  they  may  have  passed  their  hours 
better  than  I,  and  with  richer  fruits  of  such  observance.  God 
bless  you  all ! 

Monday,  20th.  I  got  a  carriage  in  the  Piazza  di  Spagna  for 
the  day,  at  twenty-five  pauls  (at  first  he  asked  me  thirty-five),  and 
three  for  buono  mano,  and  we  started  for  a  drive  which  I  had 
made  out  beforehand  as  well  as  I  could.  Over  the  Quirinal 
to  the  Sta.  Maria  Maggiore,  thence  to  the  Porta  Lorenzo  and 
the  remains  of  the  aqueducts,  then  round  to  the  Santa  Croce 
and  to  the  St.  John  Lateran,  after  having  explored  all  the  sur- 
roundings of  the  Porta  Maggiore  and  especially  the  specus  of 
the  aqueduct.  These  splendid  basilicas  seen,  we  made  our  way 
quite  across  the  city  to  the  Vatican,  and  till  three  o'clock,  the 
time  of  closing,  saw  the  gallery  and  collections.  I  turned  the 
boys  to  the  chief  things,  to  the  Demosthenes,  Minerva,  and  a 
few  others  in  the  Braccio  Nuovo,  to  the  bust  of  young  Augustus, 
then  the  Belvedere,  the  Stanze  of  Raphael,  and  lastly  to  the  pictures, 
the  Transfiguration,  and  the  Foligno,  and  the  Communion.  And 
what  a  four  hours  were  these  we  had  there !  Then,  for  the  first 
time  for  the  boys,  we  entered  St.  Peter's ;  to  me,  how  ever  unchanged 
and  grand  this  church !  We  spent  some  time  here,  and  then 


DIARY  AND  LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  131 

drove  through  the  city  to  the  Capitol,  but  found  it  was  too  late 
for  the  galleries,  and  so  put  it  off  till  the  morrow.  Then  to 
the  Forum  of  Trajan,  and  to  the  Fontana  de  Trevi,  and  then 
to  the  Calcografia  Camerale,  and  finally  home.  Afterward  walked 
a  little  on  the  Pincian,  but  returned  soon,  as  it  was  six  o'clock, 
the  dinner  hour.  What  a  crowded  day ;  how  full  of  events  and 
great  things  to  see  and  learn  and  try  to  know.  But  I  doubt 
the  wisdom  of  trying  to  do  so  much  in  four  days.  My  evening 
and  night  and  early  morning  hours  I  spent  as  usual,  mostly  by 
myself ;  but  I  am  sure  I  can  say  "  never  less  alone  than  when 
alone,"  for  how  much  have  I  to  think  of,  how  much  to  thank 
God  for,  how  much  to  resolve  upon  for  the  future,  how  many 
thoughts  of  home,  and  so  how  full  are  all  my  solitary  moments ! 

Wednesday,  23d.  A  bad  day  for  weather,  this  our  last,  and  yet 
the  Appian  Way  was  to  be  seen,  which  has  been  excavated  since 
I  was  here.  But  I  was  destined,  alas,  to  lose  this.  We  started 
in  a  carriage  for  the  day,  and  got  three  or  four  miles  outside  the 
gate,  but  it  rained  so  furiously,  and  with  so  little  prospect  of  clear- 
ing up,  that  we  turned  back,  much  to  my  sorrow.  We  rode  about 
the  Capitol,  and  some  of  the  Campus  Martius,  as  it  did  not  rain 
quite  so  badly  on  our  return ;  and  as  we  had  no  time  for  palaces 
and  their  galleries,  and  the  thousand  other  things  to  be  seen,  I 
was  forced  to  consider  our  Eoman  visit  over.  Much  of  the  early 
day  was  lost  by  my  efforts  to  get  conveyance  for  Civita  Vecchia. 
The  diligence,  the  post-coaches,  and  horses  were  all  engaged  for 
Thursday,  just  our  day,  because  the  Empress  of  Russia  was  to 
come  that  very  morning  to  Rome.  So  I  had  to  get  a  vetturino, 
and  pay  an  enormous  price  (80  francs),  as  of  course  they  had  all 
the  advantage,  knowing  the  state  of  the  case  still  better  than  we. 
And  we  had  to  start  Wednesday  night  at  eight,  instead  of  Thurs- 
day at  daybreak,  as  I  had  intended,  by  extra  diligence  or  post. 
And  so  we  got  off,  after  a  capital  dinner,  into  our  vettura,  with  a 
regular  Italian-looking  fellow  for  our  driver,  large,  fine  face,  and 
bright,  black  eyes,  and  himself  all  full  of  life.  I  had  some  mis- 
givings about  this  night  ride,  for  when  I  was  here  last  it  would 
not  have  been  thought  safe,  but  since  the  French  occupation  of 
Rome  the  Papal  roads  are  free  of  brigands ;  those  to  Naples,  I  am 
told,  are  still  dangerous,  even  by  day.  We  got  through  very  well 
indeed,  and  were  very  comfortable,  and  slept  all  night,  with  a  stop 
of  an  hour  at  Palo,  and  reached  Civita  Vecchia  at  about  ten  in 
the  morning.  I  had  no  written  contract  with  the  vetturino,  but 


132  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857. 

he  only  planked  down  at  Rome  a  napoleon  en  gage,  and  our  hotel- 
keeper  told  me  that  would  be  enough,  as  he  knew  him  to  be  honest. 

CIVITA   VECCHIA,   THE   EMPRESS   OF   RUSSIA,    AND   NAPLES. 

On  Thursday,  the  24th,  we  were  back  to  this  place,  Civita  Vec- 
chia,  and  just  inside  the  gate  there  was  the  same  servitor e  de  pi- 
azza I  had  employed  before,  ready  to  get  some  more  fees,  and  do 
the  work  for  it.  All  the  town  was  in  immense  commotion,  the 
streets  crowded  to  their  utmost  with  men,  women,  and  children,  as 
the  Russian  man-of-war  was  in  port,  and  the  empress  was  soon  to 
come  ashore  and  start  for  Rome.  Went  to  the  Hotel  de  1'Europe 
and  got  our  breakfast,  and  afterward  came  down  to  the  wharf  and 
had  a  good  view  of  the  empress  and  her  retinue  as  they  came  on 
shore  and  were  received  by  the  authorities  in  a  very  gay,  canopied 
tent  of  silks  and  damasks  made  on  the  landing,  passed  through, 
and  entered  their  carriages  and  went  off  to  Rome,  amidst  a  long 
lane  of  people  and  of  soldiers  on  either  side  of  the  road.  It  was 
the  wife  of  the  late  emperor,  a  woman  apparently  over  fifty,  and, 
as  well  as  I  could  see,  of  no  particular  beauty,  but  a  face  which 
showed  some  character.  We  got  on  board  the  steamer  about  noon, 
and  left  at  two  p.  M.  It  was  very  crowded,  and  we  had  indiffer- 
ent accommodations  the  first  night,  on  sofas  and  berths  in  the 
stern,  but  I  slept  very  well,  and  arose  early  on  Friday,  25th,  and 
found  myself  coming  down  to  the  Bay  of  Naples.  We  got  on 
shore  at  about  nine,  and  had  a  rush  about  the  city  in  carriage  and 
on  foot ;  saw  the  Museum,  though  no  time  for  long  survey.  The 
artists  in  the  halls  of  paintings  were  sadly  importunate  to  have  us 
buy  their  copies  of  the  Correggios  and  Raphaels  of  the  gallery.  I 
quite  pitied  them,  as  they  were  evidently  pressed  for  money ;  but 
their  paintings  were  of  quite  ordinary  merit,  and  besides  I  had 
neither  money  to  buy  them  nor  place  to  put  them.  I  found  large 
additions  to  the  antiquities  since  I  was  here  years  ago,  especially 
of  vases  found  in  Campania  and  Apulia.  We  got  back  to  the 
boat  at  half  past  one.  On  the  way  to  Messina  we  had  good 
weather  part  of  the  way,  but  towards  night  it  grew  windy  and 
squally,  and  the  sea  ran  high,  and  I  was  glad  to  get  to  bed. 

AN    UN-SUNDAY-LIKE   SUNDAY   IN   MESSINA. 

Messina,  Sunday,  April  26.  Here  we  are,  to  be  in  this  ancient 
island  and  city  four  or  five  days,  to  wait  for  the  boat  to  the  Pi- 
raeus. Thought  more  than  ever  of  home,  church,  Sunday-school, 


DIARY   AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  133 

and  all  to-day,  while  here  amid  scenes  so  different  from  a  New 
England  Sabbath.  Saw  everything,  indeed,  with  thoughts  of  our 
First  Baptist  Sunday-school  in  my  mind,  and  feelings  of  gratitude 
that  the  lot  of  myself  and  family  and  all  my  friends  was  not  cast 
here  amidst  circumstances  of  government,  religion,  and  whole  civ- 
ilization so  unfortunate.  The  streets  full  of  beggars,  and  wretched, 
sick,  degraded-looking  people,  children  running  wild,  and  appar- 
ently uncared  for  physically  even,  to  say  nothing  of  religious  and 
social  destitution.  So  in  the  churches,  into  some  of  which  I  went, 
where  the  children,  in  rags  and  dirt,  were  running  about  from 
chapel  to  chapel  and  show  to  show,  for  what  else  was  there  in  the 
services  to  them,  or  perhaps,  indeed,  to  all  the  grown  people  ?  and 
of  course  with  no  possibility  of  being  instructed  and  taught  the 
truths  of  the  Bible.  At  half  past  six  went  to  an  English  service 
in  a  house  near  by  the  British  consulate.  Was  shown  into  a 
small  room,  lighted  by  a  few  candles,  and  filled  with  an  audience 
of  three  women,  two  small  children,  and  one  man ;  ourselves  made 
three  more,  quite  a  godsend  in  number  to  such  a  congregation. 
The  preacher  was  in  the  pulpit,  a  young-looking  man,  who  went 
through  the  service  in  a  tone  and  manner  that  showed  want  of 
real  reverence  or  religious  feeling,  and  scarce  even  intelligence  of 
what  he  was  saying  and  doing.  The  sermon  was  quite  a  good  one, 
well  written  and  devout  in  spirit,  but  delivered  in  such  a  way  as 
plainly  showed  that  the  man  never  wrote  a  word  of  it.  A  most 
unedifying  service !  But  I  found  my  room  pleasant,  with  the  Bi- 
ble and  good  books,  and  read  to  the  boys  A.  B.'s  translation  of 
a  sermon  of  Tholuck,  and  we  all  found  it  delightful  and  really 
refreshing  in  such  a  dry  place  as  this. 

A  SUNDAY   LETTER  WRITTEN   TO    THE    SUNDAY-SCHOOL    AT    HOME. 

April  26,  1857. 
To  the  First  Baptist  Sunday-school  of  Providence :  — 

I  have  been  thinking  of  you  with  much  affection,  in  connection 
with  all  the  strange  people  and  scenes  about  me ;  and  it  has  oc- 
curred to  me  that  you  might  like  to  hear  a  few  words  of  remem- 
brance and  love,  written  to  you  in  a  far-off  land  by  your  absent 
superintendent.  You  observe  that  this  letter  is  written  at  Mes- 
sina, a  large  and  old  city  in  Sicily,  an  island  famous  in  ancient 
story,  and  in  the  history,  both  ancient  and  modern,  of  many  na- 
tions. The  island,  you  know,  is  in  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  near 
by  the  western  extremity  of  Italy,  from  which  it  is  parted  by  the 


134  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857. 

narrow  Strait  of  Messina,  that  takes  its  name  from  the  place 
where  I  am  writing.  From  the  window  of  my  room  I  see  across 
the  water  the  high  rock  of  Scylla,  on  the  Italian  coast,  just  at  the 
head  of  the  narrowest  part  of  the  strait,  and  opposite  to  this  is 
the  whirlpool  of  Charybdis,  both  great  objects  of  terror  to  naviga- 
tors of  olden  times,  and  celebrated  by  the  ancient  poets,  though 
now  not  at  all  dreaded,  as  navigation  is  so  much  better  under- 
stood. I  have  been  up  to  the  very  northeast  angle  of  the  island, 
and  ascended  to  the  top  of  a  lighthouse  that  is  called  by  an  an- 
cient name,  the  Pharos,  or  Lighthouse,  of  Pelorum,  and  though 
Scylla  loomed  up  and  projected  far  into  the  strait,  yet  it  had 
nothing  fearful  in  its  look ;  and  as  the  weather  was  fine  and  the 
water  very  calm,  I  saw  nothing  at  all  that  looked  like  the  storied 
whirlpool  of  Charybdis.  In  the  distance,  as  I  looked  out  from 
the  light,  I  saw  the  island  of  Stromboli,  a  volcanic  island  of  the 
group  called  the  Lipari,  called  in  ancient  times  the  JEolian  Is- 
lands, because  the  pagan  poets  used  to  say  that  ^Eolus,  the  god  of 
the  winds,  lived  there.  Indeed,  in  old  times,  when  science  had 
made  little  progress,  there  were  many  strange  fables  and  stories 
about  the  volcanic  islands  and  mountains  of  Sicily.  About  fifty 
miles  south  of  Messina  is  Mount  Etna,  of  whose  dreadful  erup- 
tions you  have  probably  heard,  which  the  poets  used  to  account 
for  by  fabling  that  a  huge  giant  was  confined  under  the  island, 
and  that  Etna  was  on  his  head,  and  that  all  the  terrible  earth- 
quakes and  eruptions  were  caused  by  this  gigantic  creature  trying 
to  move  and  get  released.  But  though  these  volcanoes  are  better 
understood  in  modern  times,  yet  their  effects  are  no  less  destruc- 
tive. About  seventy  years  ago  this  city  was  almost  entirely  de- 
stroyed by  an  earthquake,  and  even  now  the  traveler  sees  traces 
of  its  desolating  effects  wherever  he  goes  about  the  streets ;  and 
to-day  I  was  in  a  gentleman's  house  here,  and  he  pointed  to  a 
place  in  one  of  his  rooms  where  a  part  of  the  ceiling  had  fallen 
down,  and  he  told  me  it  occurred  last  fall,  when  there  was  a  slight 
earthquake  here.  But  the  danger  of  earthquakes  I  have  thought 
very  little  of  here,  and  indeed  it  is  by  no  means  the  worst  thing 
in  the  life  of  the  people.  I  could  indeed  tell  you  of  many  pleas- 
ant things  I  have  noticed  here  in  Messina  to-day ;  its  charming 
situation  and  scenery ;  its  beautiful  bend  of  shore ;  and  its  fine, 
secure  harbor,  with  the  delightful  landscape  all  around,  of  blue 
waters,  and  the  long  line  of  Calabrian  hills  opposite,  and  behind 
the  conical  stretch  of  the  mountains  of  Sicily.  The  skies,  too,  are 


DIARY   AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  135 

bright  and  clear,  and  the  climate  soft  and  genial,  so  that  the  peo- 
ple are  most  of  the  time  out  of  doors ;  and  here,  to-day,  in  April, 
the  fields  and  gardens  and  trees  are  all  in  summer  dress,  and 
oranges  and  lemons  are  ripe  on  the  trees,  and  people  have  on  their 
table  the  fruits  and  berries  and  vegetables  that  we  have  late  in 
June  and  in  July.  But  all  these  pleasant  things  are  in  sad  con- 
trast with  the  miserable  life  and  character  and  condition  of  the 
people  themselves ;  and  it  is  this  that  I  have  thought  of  to-day 
when  I  have  been  in  the  streets,  and  have  observed  especially  how 
poor  and  ill-clad  the  children  were,  and  how  much  they  needed  to 
be  cared  for,  to  be  gathered  into  Sunday-schools,  and  taught  the 
Bible,  and  the  way  to  be  good  and  happy  here  and  hereafter. 
And  then  I  have  wished  and  prayed  that  you  might  all  know  how 
blessed  a  lot  has  fallen  to'  you  in  your  New  England  homes,  with 
Christian  parents  and  friends,  with  the  Sabbath  and  the  Sunday- 
school  and  the  Bible,  and  all  the  means  of  instruction  you  have  so 
abundantly  given  you.  Here  I  have  seen  multitudes  of  wretched, 
ragged  children,  running  about  the  streets,  many  begging  of  every- 
body they  met,  having  no  idea,  apparently,  of  the  Sabbath,  of 
God,  of  the  Saviour,  or  the  way  of  salvation  ;  and  when  I  have 
looked  into  the  churches,  there  I  saw  some  of  them  too,  wander- 
ing about,  with  nobody  to  look  after  them,  and  nothing  like  Chris- 
tian instruction  given  them.  I  suppose  there  is  hardly  one  of  you 
in  any  of  your  classes  that  could  not  tell  these  children  more  in 
half  an  hour  about  the  Bible  and  its  tidings  of  a  Saviour  than 
they  have  ever  heard  or  seem  likely  to  hear  in  their  whole  lives. 
Then,  too,  I  find  on  inquiry,  that  there  are  no  schools  here,  or  any 
system  of  public  instruction,  so  that  the  children  are  idle,  and 
grow  up  ignorant,  without  ever  knowing  how  to  read  and  write. 
The  religion  here  is  the  Roman  Catholic,  and  a  very  bad  form, 
too,  of  that  religion,  if  religion  it  can  be  called,  and  instead  of  our 
free  institutions  they  have  a  very  despotic  government,  which 
cares  nothing  for  the  people,  and  takes  no  means  to  educate  and 
make  them  prosperous  and  happy.  The  people  do  not  have  the 
Bible,  and  have  no  instruction  in  it,  and  they  have  nothing  in  the 
churches  but  outside  shows  and  forms  and  superstitious  rites,  that 
do  not  teach  them  to  love  and  serve  God,  nor  tell  them  anything 
of  Christ  and  the  way  to  be  saved  from  their  sins.  I  will  tell  you 
something  in  particular  that  came  to  my  notice  to-day.  As  I  was 
in  the  hotel  where  I  am  stopping,  I  heard  the  noise  of  music  in 
the  street  and  the  moving  of  many  feet  on  the  pavement.  On 


13G  DIARY   AND   LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1857. 

going  to  the  window  a  strange  sight,  especially  for  Sunday,  met 
my  view.  It  was  a  great  procession  coming  along ;  and  first  of 
all,  little  children  in  it  I  saw,  hardly  big  enough  to  be  in  our  in- 
fant school,  dressed  in  little  black  cloaks  and  hoods,  and  led  along, 
carrying  candles  which  their  little  hands  could  hardly  hold.  Then 
came  a  rushing  crowd,  and  in  the  centre  I  saw,  carried  on  a  frame 
supported  by  many  men,  a  large  figure  in  wood,  apparently  of 
some  saint,  in  a  kneeling  posture,  covered  over  with  a  great  deal 
of  gilding,  and  surrounded  by  an  immense  number  of  candles ; 
and  then  a  band  of  music,  a  troop  of  soldiers,  a  company  of  police, 
and  the  whole  town  behind  in  throngs,  men,  women,  and  children. 
Of  course  I  asked  what  all  this  meant,  and  especially  what  those 
little  boys  were  there  for,  carrying  candles  and  dressed  like  little 
monks.  And  I  found  that  this  Sunday  was  the  Festival  of  St. 
Francis,  and  the  procession  to  the  church  was  its  celebration. 
These  little  boys  had  been  vowed  to  his  service,  had  been  chris- 
tened by  his  name,  and  they  and  their  parents  and  friends  consid- 
ered them  his  children,  under  his  protection,  and  always  safe  from 
harm  and  danger.  Perhaps  I  did  not  get  a  very  full  and  correct 
account  of  what  I  saw,  but  I  could  see  enough  myself  to  know 
that  there  was  a  sad  want  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  of  our 
gracious  Father  in  heaven,  who  alone  can  protect  and  bless  us, 
and  of  that  divine  Saviour,  whom  in  his  love  He  has  sent  us,  that 
we  may  all  be  saved  from  sin  and  be  prepared  for  heaven.  If  our 
Saviour  were  now  on  earth,  and  should  go  about  these  streets  on 
his  errands  of  love,  as  He  did  once  in  Jerusalem,  He  would  find  the 
people  not  only  as  ignorant  of  the  true  God  and  the  Messiah,  and 
as  much  misled  and  deceived  by  corrupt  priests,  as  He  found  them 
there,  but  also  just  as  many  who  needed  his  healing  mercy,  the 
palsied,  the  halt,  the  dumb,  and  the  blind,  the  wretched  poor,  to 
follow  his  steps  and  supplicate  his  blessing.  But  how  happy  your 
lot  and  mine  in  all  these  things,  and  especially  in  regard  to  our 
knowledge  of  Christ  and  the  way  of  salvation !  I  have  thought 
to-day  much  of  all  this  contrast,  and  it  is  my  prayer  to  God  for 
all  of  us,  as  a  school,  as  teachers,  and  as  scholars,  that  we  may 
know  how  to  be  thankful,  to  be  aware  how  much  God  has  given  us, 
and  what  He  requires  of  us,  and  that  we  may  be  sure  to  accept  the 
gospel  of  glad  tidings  He  has  brought  to  our  ears  from  our  very 
infancy,  and  try  to  spend  our  lives  in  the  service  of  Christ.  As  I 
have  sat  in  my  room  here  and  looked  across  the  strait  before  me, 
I  thought  of  the  great  Apostle  who  once,  in  the  course  of  his  many 


DIARY   AND   LETTERS   FROM   EUROPE,  1857.  137 

labors  and  sufferings  for  Christ's  sake,  came  through  these  waters 
and  stopped  at  Rhegiuin  (the  modern  Reggio),  which  is  just  op- 
posite Messina,  when,  as  a  prisoner,  he  was  carried  to  Rome  to 
plead  his  cause  before  Caesar.  If  only  we  might  have  something 
of  his  heroic  Christian  spirit,  and  try  to  follow  Christ  as  he  did, 
"counting  all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency  of  Christ  Jesus," 
that  we  might  "  win  Christ,"  and  at  last "  be  found  in  Him." 

SICILIAN   SCENERY   AND   BEGGARS. 

Tuesday,  28th.  Sent  for  our  passports  from  the  police,  and 
set  them  going  on  the  route  for  vises,  and  a  very  tortuous  one,  too, 
what  with  messages  back  and  forth  from  the  American  consul, 
police,  and  other  authorities.  Much  American  shipping  here,  and 
at  present  six  or  seven  ships  and  barks,  which  look  better  than 
anything  else  in  port.  Mr.  Behn,  the  American  consul,  gives  a 
shocking  account  of  religion  and  education  and  morals  here.  No 
schools  and  no  attention  to  education,  except  for  those  intended 
for  the  church.  Girls  often  sent  to  convents  but  seldom  well 
instructed ;  before  marriage  kept  very  rigidly  with  no  company  in 
the  house,  but  lots  of  intrigues  and  courting  going  on  in  the 
streets  and  the  churches.  The  priests  often  abettors  and  princi- 
pals in  vice,  and  procurers,  too,  as  I  was  informed  by  one  who 
had  heard  them  make  overtures  to  English  strangers  here. 

Wednesday,  29th.  Went  by  carriage  to  the  northeast  corner 
of  the  island.  A  beautiful  drive  all  the  way  along  the  shore. 
Ascended  the  light  there,  called  Pelorum  Light,  and  had  a  fine 
view  of  island,  Scylla,  sea,  and  strait.  We  were  sadly  annoyed 
by  the  troops  of  beggars,  more  so  than  at  any  place  I  ever  vis- 
ited. They  were  poor  and  wretched,  many  boys  among  them, 
and  some  palsied  and  one  man  dumb.  This  last  was  frightfully 
importunate  and  ran  by  our  coach  for  a  mile  out  of  the  village, 
begging  by  all  the  natural  language  he  could  command  that  we 
would  aid  him.  I  really  had  nothing  myself,  but  should  have 
certainly  given  if  I  had.  Finally  I  told  the  boys  if  they  had  any- 
thing in  their  pockets  to  give  it  to  him,  as  a  man  must  be  in  need 
to  run  such  a  distance  for  charity.  And  what  looks  and  acts  of 
gratitude  when  the  piece  of  money  was  flung  to  him  !  We  looked 
back  and  there  he  stood  in  the  road  holding  up  both  hands  and 
apparently  blessing  us  and  commending  us  to  heaven.  I  thought, 
as  I  had  done  during  the  whole  drive,  of  Jerusalem  in  our  Sa- 
viour's time,  and  the  importunate  manner  in  which  the  wretched 


138  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1867. 

blind  and  lame  besought  his  gracious  aid.  The  aspect  of  Scylla 
was  less  striking  than  I  had  expected,  but  still  a  commanding, 
strangely  projecting  rock.  Nothing  like  a  Chary bdis  visible,  but 
the  keeper  of  the  light  told  us  it  was  frequently  so  stormy  that  no 
vessel  could  leave  or  enter  the  strait,  —  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
wide  at  its  narrowest  point. 

A   MILITARY    BEGGAR. 

Thursday,  30th  April.  Got  on  board  steamer  at  two  o'clock, 
but  left  the  port  at  four.  At  the  wharf  one  of  the  perpetual  gens 
d'armes  on  hand,  —  I  had  seen  him  hanging  about  there  for  an 
hour  or  more,  —  who  stepped  up  and  said  "  Dogana"  which 
meant,  of  course,  "  a  small  fee  and  I  am  content."  I  gave  him  a 
bit  of  silver,  and  we  went  onto  the  boat  without  further  trouble. 

ALONG  THE  GRECIAN  SHORES. 

Friday  and  Saturday,  May  1  and  2.  Golden,  golden  days ! 
Such  a  sky,  such  an  air,  and  such  wonderfully  fine  views  and 
grand  old  places  to  see,  all  clustered  over  with  great  historic 
memories !  Never  did  I  suppose  that  I  should  have  been  so 
favored  as  to  have  such  a  voyage.  Especially  was  Saturday  a 
great  day.  Early  we  made  Cape  Matapan,  which  brought  up  to 
mind  the  Peloponnesus,  Laconia,  Sparta,  and  all ;  then  came 
Cythera  in  sight  on  our  right,  and  thence  arose  Venus  Anadyo- 
mene ;  then  we  doubled  the  Cape  Malea,  and  onward  by  Epidau- 
rus  with  the  Cyclades  off  on  our  right ;  and  at  last  passing  Hydra, 
we  came  up  the  Saronic  Gulf,  and  then  JEgina  and  Salamis,  and 
the  Pira?us  finally  at  about  half  past  seven  P.  M.  One  succession 
all  day  of  glorious  sights  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  and  all  under 
the  finest  auspices  of  sky  and  sea  that  could  be  imagined. 

SUNDAY    AT     ATHENS. A    BIBLE    READING   WHERE    PAUL 

PREACHED. 

Athens,  Sunday,  May  3, 1857.  Got  ashore  at  seven  A.  M.  Found 
a  carriage  and  made  for  Athens  as  quick  as  we  could,  a  five-mile 
drive  over  a  dusty  road,  and  with  the  sun  already  quite  hot,  but 
we  were  near  the  Cephissus  and  the  Groves  of  the  Academy,  and 
soon  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  Acropolis  and  all  the  surrounding 
hills.  And  what  a  strange  Sunday  morning  it  seemed  !  Went 
to  the  Hotel  d'Orient,  and  at  eleven  to  the  Church  of  the  Eng- 
lish Embassy.  In  the  afternoon  went  with  Mr.  Dickson  to  the 


DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  139 

Areopagus,  where  we  read  together  in  the  original  and  the  Eng- 
lish Paul's  speech,  Acts  xvii.  In  the  midst  of  such  localities 
and  on  the  very  spot  we  could  feel  the  force  and  pertinence  of  the 
words  and  thoughts  he  uttered.  Would  that  a  man  of  like  spirit 
and  force  might  now  appear  here  to  turn  the  people  to  a  simpler 
and  truer  worship  of  God  alone,  and  of  the  true  God  our  Saviour ! 

CLASSICAL   SIGHT-SEEING  IN   ATHENS. 

Monday,  May  4.  Up  early  with  the  boys  and  an  American 
who  had  come  with  us  from  Messina,  and  with  our  guide,  George 
Makropolos,  and  started  for  the  chief  localities  and  monuments 
of  the  ancient  city.  Began  on  the  southeast  near  by  the  Ilissus, 
the  Stadium,  the  Olympian  Jupiter's  temple ;  then  Hadrian's 
arch  and  the  monument  of  Lysicrates,  to  the  southeast  angle  of 
the  Acropolis ;  first  the  famous  old  theatre  of  Bacchus,  which  I 
have  studied  so  much  in  books ;  the  Odeum  of  Herodes,  where 
we  found  excavations  going  on  with  columns  found  already  and 
amphorae,  statues,  etc.  Then  went  around  to  the  west  and  up  to 
the  Propylsea,  the  Parthenon,  etc.  All  my  expectations  fully 
realized  by  a  sight  of  these  grand  and  beautiful  ruins.  Picked 
up  some  bits  of  marble,  also  flowers  and  some  crow-quills  which 
Pegasus-like  had  happened  to  fall  in  the  Parthenon,  and  took 
them  along  as  souvenirs  of  my  first  visit  here.  Then  the  Mu- 
seum, Pnyx,  Areopagus,  Temple  of  Theseus,  and  home  through 
the  narrow  streets  of  the  modern  city.  Certainly  I  never  before 
had  such  a  walk  before  breakfast.  We  got  to  the  hotel  at  ten 
o'clock,  and  were  hungry  enough  to  eat  a  famous  Athenian  break- 
fast, of  which  the  honey  of  Mt.  Hymettus  was  not  the  worst  or 
the  smallest  part.  My  room  has  two  windows,  the  one  facing  the 
Acropolis  and  the  other  Hymettus ;  and  so  clear  is  the  air  that 
they  appear  close  by  me,  as  if  I  had  only  to  take  one  or  two  steps 
over  those  roofs  below  me,  and  at  once  stand  on  those  famed 
places. 

CARRIAGE   AND  HORSEBACK   TO   MARATHON. — THE    CONSE- 
QUENCES. 

Tuesday,  May  5.  Another  great  day  (though  a  hard  one  and 
sore).  Went  to  Marathon.  Started  at  4.30  A.  M.  (and  how  hard 
it  was  to  get  up  so  early  after  the  fatigue  of  the  day  before)  and 
by  carriage  to  Cephissia.  What  a  grand  morning,  —  just  like 
yesterday,  when  I  was  out  of  bed  long  before  the  guide  came  and 


140  DIARY   AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857. 

saw  the  early  dawn  on  Mt.  Hymettus,  —  and  what  a  fresh,  glori- 
ous air  as  we  drove  out  the  city  into  the  country.  Dr.  King  had 
spoken  to  me  of  the  dangers  from  brigands  anywhere  out  of  the 
city,  and  I  had  heard  too  of  a  recent  act  of  a  band^who  carried 
out  of  Corinth  to  the  mountains  a  wealthy  citizen  and  his  brother- 
in-law,  and  sent  back  demanding  a  ransom  of  about  $20,000.  I 
confess  I  was  not  without  apprehensions  in  respect  to  journeying, 
but  Dr.  Hill  and  others  told  me  there  was  no  danger  whatever  in 
any  direction,  and  I  went  accordingly,  thinking  I  should  regret  it 
if  I  should  lose  any  such  excursions  now  that  I  am  here.  Doubt- 
less there  is  danger,  but  I  reflected  that  just  after  such  an  act  one 
might  be  safer,  and  besides  that,  the  brigands  were  now  pursued 
by  soldiers  and  most  apt  to  keep  out  of  the  way  for  some  time 
to  come.  And  glad  am  I  that  I  was  not  dissuaded.  Everything 
far  surpassed  my  expectations,  especially  the  natural  scenery,  the 
mountains  everywhere,  the  beautiful  dells  and  plains  and  espe- 
cially the  grand  gorge  just  above  the  ancient  Marathon,  from 
which  one  has  the  plain  spread  out  before  him,  and  the  sea 
stretching  beyond.  Got  to  Cephissia  at  7.15,  and  at  Marathon  at 
ten  A.  M.  Stopped  at  a  khan,  my  first  in  Greece,  mounted  the 
steps  running  along  the  side  of  the  bouse,  and  there  on  a  mattress 
spread  for  us,  and  low  round  seat,  filled  with  cotton  or  something 
else,  we  took  our  breakfast,  which  the  guide  had  brought  along. 
It  was  the  festival  of  St.  George,  and  the  shepherds  and  their 
families  from  all  about  came  to  Vrana,  as  the  modern  town  is 
called,  to  the  church  of  St.  George  on  the  hillside,  to  celebrate 
the  day  by  religious  acts,  and  then  by  dance  and  song.  The 
khan  was  full,  and  in  a  low  building  adjoining  it,  where  our 
horses  were  put,  I  saw  parties  of  the  people  sitting  down  and 
taking  their  simple  meal.  Seeing  a  woman  with  an  infant  and  a 
man  by  her  whom  I  took  for  her  husband,  I  could  not  but  think 
of  Bethlehem  and  our  Saviour  and  Mary  and  Joseph,  of  the 
stable  and  the  manger,  "  because  there  was  no  room  in  the  inn." 
Our  ride  from  Cephissia  had  been  on  horseback,  and  I  had  a  very 
hard  trotting  beast,  and  was  terribly  shaken  up  and  made  stiff  and 
tired  ;  but  with  so  much  to  see  and  think  of  I  got  along  very  well. 
We  galloped  across  the  famous  plain  to  the  Tumulus,  where  the 
Athenians  were  buried,  and  rode  to  the  top  and  thence  looked  at 
the  plain,  the  most  perfectly  level  plain  I  ever  saw.  The  whole 
view  around  was  not  only  inspiring  from  association,  but  beautiful 
and  grand  from  its  natural  character.  Indeed,  everlasting  nature 


DIARY  AND   LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  141 

may  well  divide  the  palm  here  with  ever-changing  man  and  his- 
tory, and,  indeed,  perhaps  carry  it  quite  off.  The  ride  back  to 
Cephissia  I  found  a  hard  one  and  fatiguing,  more  than  anything 
for  a  long  time,  and  at  Cephissia  how  glad  I  was  to  dismount  and 
get  into  the  carriage  and  in  the  corner  just  let  myself  go  to  sleep, 
which  I  did  in  perhaps  two  minutes  and  a  half !  Was  refreshed 
by  nap,  by  the  breeze,  and  the  views  of  Athens  and  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  felt  tolerably  well  on  reaching  the  hotel. 

Wednesday,  6th.  Had  previously  made  arrangements  for  a 
longer  excursion  to  begin  on  the  7th,  but  this  morning  sent  for 
the  guide  and  gave  it  up,  and  decided  to  lie  by  a  day  or  two. 
Kept  my  room  all  day,  writing  and  reading.  It  was  a  wonderful 
moonlight  night,  and  I  sat  till  late  in  my  room,  looking  out  at  the 
Acropolis  and  the  other  hills  bathed  in  the  serene  light  of  the 
moon,  and  with  an  air  as  soft  as  a  June  evening  with  us. 

Thursday,  7th.  Also  quiet  to-day  and  much  better,  —  indeed 
well  again,  I  hope,  and  thus  far  without  medicine  at  all.  In  the 
evening  ventured,  notwithstanding  my  little  illness  of  yesterday, 
to  go  with  Mr.  Dickson  and  a  party  made  up  by  him  to  the 
Acropolis  by  moonlight,  and  glad  was  I  that  I  went.  Never  had 
such  a  magnificent  sight  as  this  hill,  those  grand  old  columns,  and 
ruins,  all  lighted  by  a  moon  of  rare  brightness,  and  in  a  still, 
most  delicious  air. 

ELEUSIS    AND    SALAMIS. MODERN   USE    FOR    ANCIENT    SAR- 
COPHAGI. 

Friday,  8th.  By  carriage  visited  Eleusis  and  Megara.  The 
drive  out  of  Athens  at  the  early  hour  of  five,  when  the  air  was 
fresh  and  cool,  was  delightful,  and  the  hills  stood  out  again  as  I 
have  already  seen  them,  in  bold  relief  against  the  sky.  The  road 
lay  along  the  old  Sacred  Way  to  Eleusis,  the  path  of  the  reli- 
gious processions,  until  we  reached  the  Pass  of  Daphne,  a  narrow 
defile  in  Mt.  ^Egaleos,  a  wild,  picturesque  place.  At  the  end  of 
the  pass  we  stopped  to  visit  the  Monastery  of  Daphne,  an  old 
building  reared  upon  blocks  of  marble  belonging  to  some  old 
Greek  structure,  it  is  supposed  a  temple  of  Apollo.  Hastening 
away,  we  resumed  our  drive,  and  coming  down  the  pass,  we  came 
in  sight  of  the  bay  of  Eleusis  with  the  island  of  Salamis  close  by, 
and  hills  and  mountains  on  the  opposite  coast.  By  this  beautiful 
bay,  which  was  as  calm  as  a  lake,  we  drove  nearly  the  whole  way 
till  we  reached  Megara.  But  little  did  I  find  to  see  in  Eleusis,  — 


142  DIARY   AND   LETTERS  FROM   EUROPE,  1857. 

the  site  of  the  ancient  city,  the  ruins  of  the  Acropolis,  and  the 
spot,  at  least,  where  was  a  temple  of  Demeter.  We  reached  Me- 
gara  at  noon  when  it  was  very  hot,  and  the  narrow  streets  and  ill- 
built  houses,  reaching  up  the  hill  on  which  the  town  is  built,  were 
quite  unpromising.  But  we  got  to  the  khan  of  the  place,  a  very 
neat  one,  and  sat  upon  a  rude  balcony,  but  deliciously  cool,  and 
there  had  our  lunch.  Our  guide  took  us  off  a  long  stretch  to  see 
sarcophagi,  and  when  we  got  in  sight  of  them,  what  should  we 
find  but  the  whole  female  population  washing  any  quantity  of 
clothes,  —  probably  for  the  whole  town,  and  from  their  looks 
after  a  long  interval,  —  and  using  these  very  sarcophagi  for  tubs. 
A  fountain  close  by  furnished  lots  of  water,  and  there  they  were 
at  work  en  masse,  very  scantily  dressed  and  looking  for  the  most 
part  as  if  they  ought  to  be  washed  thoroughly  themselves.  We 
got  home  at  an  early  hour  towards  evening.  Here,  too,  as  at 
Marathon,  the  chief  impression  left  with  me  was  derived  from 
the  natural  scenery,  the  mountains  and  the  bay  of  Eleusis,  rather 
than  from  history  and  antiquities. 

ARGOS   AND  MYCENJE   UNDER   DIFFICULTIES. 

Wednesday,  13th.  After  many  plans  made  and  broken  in  upon 
by  various  causes,  we  started  off  at  last  by  steamboat  to  Nauplia, 
to  visit  from  there  Argos  and  Mycenae.  It  was  a  pleasant  day, 
though  warm,  and  the  boat  was  crowded,  the  Greeks  lying  about 
on  the  decks  on  their  blankets  in  delightful  disorder.  For  a  part 
of  the  way  our  course  was  over  the  same  waters  by  which  we 
came  to  the  Piraeus,  until  we  reached  the  Gulf  of  Argos.  The 
boat  was  a  very  slow  one,  and  we  did  not  get  to  Nauplia  till  6.30 
p.  M.,  several  hours  behind  time.  Nauplia  from  first  to  last 
we  found  a  shocking  place,  especially  the  hotel,  the  filthiest  one 
I  was  ever  in.  Still,  it  was  full  to  its  utmost,  and  so  we  had 
to  sleep  in  the  salon  or  dining-room.  Luckily  for  me,  George  had 
brought  an  iron  bedstead,  mattress  and  all.  The  boys  declined 
having  them  bring  beds  for  them,  and  I  slept  free  from  dirt  and 
vermin,  from  which  they  suffered  terribly.  What  a  fearful  time 
they  had,  as  well  as  an  inmate  of  a  room  which  opened  into  our 
dining-room-bedroom,  —  a  professor  from  the  University,  as  I 
found,  —  who  surprised  me  in  the  middle  of  the  night  by  rush- 
ing out  from  his  room  in  his  shirt,  and  with  candle  in  hand,  call- 
ing for  waiters  and  landlord,  and  making  a  terrible  ado  about  his 
bed  and  bedclothes,  which  last  he  hauled  out  and  held  up  to  the 


DIARY  AND   LETTERS   FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  143 

candle  with  unmistakable  demonstrations,  and  all  the  while  scold- 
ing in  a  great  rage.  At  last  he  had  a  quasi  bed  on  the  floor  and 
lay  down,  and  in  the  gray  of  morn,  when  I  awoke,  there  he  lay, 
a  huge  great  figure  on  the  floor,  with  a  bit  of  a  candle  burning 
by  him,  and  holding  up  a  big  book  which  he  was  reading ;  "  pur- 
suit of  knowledge  under  difficulties,"  I  thought.  Next  day  we 
were  off  early  in  a  carriage  for  Tiryns,  Mycenae,  and  Argos,  and 
it  was  a  great  day  for  antiquities,  —  the  huge  Cyclopean  walls  of 
Tiryns,  a  couple  of  miles  from  Nauplia,  twenty-five  feet  thick  and 
probably  more  than  three  thousand  years  old,  and  still  to  be  seen 
to  perfection.  I  could  not  understand  the  structure  of  the  fort- 
ress to  which  this  stupendous  masonry  belonged,  but  I  wandered 
about  the  hills  on  which  the  walls  yet  are  seen,  in  wonder  at  the 
immense  blocks  of  stone  set  down  here  ages  ago  for  the  citadel 
by  the  Tirynthians.  Then  we  went  on  over  the  broad  plain  of 
Argolis,  till  we  came  to  the  village  of  Charvati,  and  near  to  the 
ruins  of  the  city  of  Agamemnon,  Mycenae.  Here  we  left  the  car- 
riage, and  by  a  long  stretch  of  footpath  ascended  the  rugged  hills 
till  we  came  to  the  site  of  the  ruins  of  the  Homeric  hero.  We 
climbed  a  steep  hill,  just  under  a  still  higher  cliff,  and  between 
the  dry  beds  of  two  mountain  streams,  to  the  citadel,  and  came  at 
last  upon  the  so-called  Gate  of  the  Lions,  a  grand  specimen  of  the 
Pelasgian  (?)  architecture  in  huge  blocks  of  stone ;  two,  eight  or 
ten  feet  high,  supporting  a  third  fifteen  feet  long  and  seven  feet 
high.  Above  on  a  triangular  block  yet  stand  two  lions  in  relief, 
on  their  hind  legs,  their  forepaws  resting  upon  a  round  altar. 

(Here  the  diary  ends  abruptly.) 
AULD   LANG    SYNE.  —  A    VISIT   TO    THOLUCK. 

(From  a  Letter.} 

Berlin,  17th  June,  1857.  I  have  had  a  delightful  little  visit 
in  Halle.  I  took  Mrs.  Tholuck  entirely  by  surprise.  On  the 
evening  I  arrived  I  went  there,  and  was  in  the  room  just  after 
dark,  before  the  candles  were  lighted,  and  went  in  without  giv- 
ing my  name.  She  came  in,  and  I  stepped  in  and  asked  her  if 
she  knew  me,  at  the  same  time  drawing  her  towards  the  window 
where  it  was  lighter.  She  recognized  me  directly,  and  then  we 
had  a  good  laugh  and  a  pleasant  talk.  I  stayed  and  took  supper, 
and  when  Tholuck  came  in,  he  exclaimed,  "You  are  just  the 
same  as  ever,  only  you  've  mounted  a  beard ! "  And  so  we  sat 


144  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1867. 

down,  and  talked  over  a  supper  of  bonnydabber,  sausages,  and 
bread  and  butter.  I  was  there  several  times,  and  one  evening 
he  made  quite  a  little  party  for  me.  He  thought  nobody  would 
believe  I  had  a  wife  and  children,  —  and  as  to  the  children,  I 
should  have  to  bring  along  the  baptism-record  (Taufschein)  or 
the  idea  would  be  incredible. 

SUNDAY    IN     BERLIN.  —  HOLY-DAY    AND   HOLIDAY.  —  THE 
UNIVERSITY   REVISITED. 

{From  a  Letter.) 

Berlin,  Sunday,  June  21,  1857.  I  was  rather  late  at  the  morn- 
ing service  in  the  cathedral  church,  and  therefore  lost  some  of  the 
best  of  the  music  from  what  is  called  the  "  Dom-choir,"  which  is 
the  best  church  music  here,  and  probably  in  Germany.  As  I  went 
in  the  organ  was  resounding  through  the  great  church,  accom- 
panying the  choir  and  the  many  hundred  voices  of  the  congrega- 
tion in  one  of  the  grand  old  church  melodies  so  numerous  in  Ger- 
man psalmody.  Such  music  awakens  the  devoutest  emotions  in  a 
worshiper  as  he  comes  into  the  house  of  God,  and  I  felt  as  if  I 
could  lift  my  heart  to  God  here  in  this  distant  land  in  profound 
gratitude  for  the  many  mercies  of  his  hand,  and  especially  for  the 
gift  of  a  Saviour  and  the  gospel  and  all  the  services  of  the  Chris- 
tian church.  All  the  pews  in  the  church  were  filled  below  and 
above,  and  people  were  standing  about  in  all  the  aisles.  The 
officiating  clergyman,  who  soon  appeared  in  the  pulpit,  was  Hoff- 
man, one  of  the  court-preachers,  and  one  of  the  ablest  and  the 
most  evangelical  of  the  Berlin  clergy.  The  spirit  of  the  whole 
sermon  was  excellent,  and  the  manner  most  affectionate  and  ear- 
nest, and  I  felt  that  I  was  listening  to  one  who  had  himself  expe- 
rienced the  blessings  of  which  he  spoke  and  who  desired  to  com- 
mend them  to  the  experience  of  all  who  heard  him,  and  to  win 
them  all  to  a  participation  in  the  glorious  inheritance  of  the 
saints.  I  had  been  told  that  the  Communion  was  to  be  adminis- 
tered after  the  service,  and  so  I  lingered  behind,  after  the  bene- 
diction was  pronounced,  with  a  feeling  that  if  I  heard  anything 
like  an  invitation  to  strangers  of  another  creed,  that  I  should  be 
glad  to  partake  of  the  ordinance.  I  was  surprised  to  find  that 
but  very  few  remained ;  from  the  many  doors  of  the  church  the 
people  streamed  out,  and  as  I  drew  near  to  the  chancel  I  saw  but 
a  scattered  group  of  people,  apparently  of  the  humbler  classes  of 


DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM   EUROPE,   1857.  145 

the  parish,  sitting  about  and  waiting  in  silent  devotion  the  admin- 
istration of  the  Communion  from  the  clergyman.  Dr.  Strauss 
came  in  and  the  Communion  service  began.  While  all  were  unit- 
ing with  the  minister  in  prayer,  I  heard  near  me  a  suppressed 
voice  as  of  one  weeping,  and  turning  around  I  saw  a  woman  at 
the  end  of  the  bench  where  I  sat,  kneeling  on  the  pavement  and 
her  arms  on  the  bench  and  her  head  bowed  and  evidently  strug- 
gling with  feelings  I  could  only  conjecture,  till  at  last  she  wept 
quite  loud.  From  her  dress  and  appearance  I  thought  she  was  a 
servant  girl,  and  as  she  arose  after  prayer  to  the  seat,  her  face 
flushed  and  her  eyes  filled  with  tears,  I  could  hardly  refrain  from 
going  to  her  and  asking  the  cause  of  her  weeping.  Directly,  how- 
ever, I  saw  a  lady  approach  her  and  at  once  enter  into  earnest 
conversation  in  whispers,  which  lasted  some  time  and  seemed  to 
leave  the  woman  in  a  happier  mood.  I  could  not  help  thinking 
she  might  be  in  that  temple  of  God,  under  the  influence  of  the 
service  just  closed  and  of  that  which  was  going  on,  just  such  a 
penitent  as  our  Lord  himself  had  He  been  there  in  person  (as  once 
in  Jerusalem)  woiild  have  approached  and  cheered  and  blessed 
with  his  divine  words  of  forgiveness  and  lasting  peace.  As  I  went 
out  of  the  church  I  saw  just  before  me  the  lady  who  had  conversed 
with  the  weeper,  and  I  wanted  very  much  to  ask  her  what  was  the 
matter  with  the  poor  woman,  but  I  thought  it  might  seem  im- 
proper, and  so  I  only  dwelt  upon  my  own  conjectures.  "The 
heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness,  and  a  stranger  intermeddleth  not 
therewith."  Perhaps  she  had  met  with  some  sad  affliction,  was 
suffering  from  some  crushing  bereavement ;  or  if  already  a  Chris- 
tian, was  "  weeping  bitterly  "  like  Peter  over  the  consciousness  of 
grievous  backslidings  ;  or  perhaps,  too,  she  had  been  enlightened 
by  the  Spirit  through  the  sermon  we  had  all  just  heard  to  dis- 
cover the  sinfulness  of  sin,  and  was  bowed  in  penitence  and  con- 
trition. This  little  incident  interested  me  still  more  in  the  Com- 
munion service,  and  made  me  feel  how  much  we  all  need  to  repent 
afresh  on  every  such  solemn  occasion,  and  turn  to  Him  whose 
blood  was  shed  for  us  all,  for  the  remission  of  sin. 

It  is  strange  what  transitions  and  what  different  scenes  one  sees 
in  a  German  city  on  a  Sunday,  and  in  immediate  succession.  As 
I  went  out  of  the  church,  where  had  been  just  now  so  large  an 
assembly  of  devout  worshipers  listening  to  most  evangelical 
preaching,  I  came  down  to  the  great  street  of  the  city,  and  as  I 
approached  the  grand  guard-house,  I  heard  the  sound  of  military 


146  DIARY   AND   LETTERS  FROM   EUROPE,  1857. 

music  ;  and  on  coming  near,  I  saw  a  great  crowd  of  people,  mili- 
tary officers  and  citizens  of  all  ranks  and  ages,  men,  women,  and 
children  gathered  about  the  guard-house  and  in  the  grove  behind 
it,  listening  to  the  music,  which  is  here  played  at  noon  on  Sunday, 
as  on  any  other  day,  by  the  band  of  the  regiment  here  stationed. 
All  was  indeed  quiet  and  orderly,  and  there  was  nothing  you 
could  see  or  hear  that  you  could  find  fault  with,  except  the  scene 
itself,  which,  especially  on  coming  from  church,  seemed  so  unlike 
Sunday  and  so  excellently  fitted  to  do  away  with  good  impressions 
received  in  the  church.  In  the  afternoon  and  evening  all  was 
like  any  other  day,  except  that  there  were  more  people  in  the 
streets  and  all  wending  their  way  outside  the  city  to  the  music- 
garden,  with  their  families,  children,  nurses,  and  all.  All  this  is 
very  strange  to  an  American,  and  indeed  struck  me  so  to-day, 
familiar  as  I  have  been  with  German  life  ;  and  yet  upon  reflection 
—  you  may  wonder  at  my  inconsistency,  too  —  I  am  not  sure  that 
this  German  theory  and  practice  on  a  Sunday  is  entirely  wrong, 
and  ours  entirely  right. 

I  have  found  a  great  deal  to  interest  me  and  keep  me  busy  in 
revisiting  the  University  and  calling  upon  the  people  to  whom 
I  had  letters.  Boeckh,  the  great  classical  scholar,  now  about 
seventy-five,  insisted  upon  it  that  he  remembered  my  face,  and 
that  I  seemed  to  him  quite  like  an  old  acquaintance,  and  this,  too, 
before  I  had  told  him  that  I  once  studied  here  and  attended  his 
lectures.  But  /  don't  believe  it.  Probably  he  may  have  heard 
from  one  of  the  professors  here,  that  there  was  an  American  pro- 
fessor in  town,  who  had  a  letter  of  introduction  to  him.  I  had  a 
delightful  talk  with  Hitter,  the  veteran  geographer,  and  famous 
all  over  the  world.  He  received  me  with  great  kindness  and 
talked  to  me  as  a  venerable  father  to  a  son.  He  is  now  seventy- 
eight,  but  keeps  working  on,  and  making  books  and  lecturing ;  and 
though  he  has  some  infirmities,  yet,  on  the  whole,  looks  hale  and 
hearty.  I  have  not  yet  seen  Humboldt,  but  have  sent  a  note  to 
him.  He  is  probably  in  Potsdam,  as  the  king  and  court  are  there. 

My  health  continues  good,  and  I  do  wonders  every  day.  And 
yet  I  need  to  be  careful,  and  I  suppose  always  must  be,  and  can 
hardly  expect  to  be  wholly  free  from  some  annoying  ailments. 
But  I  have  every  reason  to  think  that  I  shall  be  able  to  do  all 
that  will  devolve  upon  me,  when  I  get  home,  without  any  inter- 
ruptions, and  I  hope  that  years  of  active  service  of  some  kind  are 
in  reserve  for  me. 


DIARY  AND  LETTERS  FROM  EUROPE,  1857.  147 


HOMEWARD   BOUND. 

(From  a  Letter.) 

Paris,  30th  July,  1857.  Here  you  see  I  am  safe  back  again  in 
Paris,  and  in  my  old  quarters  at  the  Hotel  Bedford,  writing  to 
you  from  the  same  table  on  which  I  wrote  in  April,  only  in  far 
better  health,  thank  God,  than  then,  and  much  nearer  you  and 
home  than  I  was  then.  Then  I  was  going,  and  now  I  am  com- 
ing,—  all  the  difference  in  the  world,  I  assure  you,  especially  when 
the  going  is  in  search  of  health,  and  the  coming  in  possession  of  it. 
It  seems  incredible  to  me,  the  whole  thing,  a  kind  of  dream,  as  I 
sit  here  this  summer  morning  in  this  snug  apartment,  writing  to 
you,  and  feeling  myself  (Deo  volente)  less  than  a  month's  time 
distant  from  home.  How  I  feel  like  rushing  for  Liverpool 
straightway,  and  getting  on  board  that  steamer,  and  then  begging 
steam,  wind,  and  wave  to  do  their  best  to  send  us  on  to  Boston 
and  Providence. 


SELECTIONS  FROM 

ESSAYS, 
FRIDAY   CLUB  PAPERS 

AND 

OTHER  WRITINGS, 

OF 

JOHN   LARKIN   LINCOLN. 


152  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

plete  form  in  1808.  The  third  act  of  the  second  part  appeared 
as  late  as  1827,  and  the  remaining  four  acts  were  written  after 
the  age  of  seventy-five,  and  the  whole  was  published  after  the 
poet's  death.  On  the  day  when  he  had  written  the  last  passage, 
he  said  to  Eckermann,  "  My  remaining  days  I  may  now  consider 
a  free  gift ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  all  one  to  me,  what  I  now  do,  or 
whether  I  do  anything  more."  What  Horace  said  of  his  patron 
Maecenas,  may  be  said,  therefore,  in  a  still  higher  sense  of  Goethe's 
Faust  —  it  was  the  theme  of  his  earliest  and  of  his  latest  song. 
Even  in  his  boyhood  his  imagination  was  seized  by  the  weird  story 
of  Faust,  as  he  read  it  in  the  then  popular  book  of  Meynenden, 
and  saw  it  in  the  puppet  shows  at  that  time  so  common  in  Frank- 
fort. In  his  student  life  at  Strasburg,  when  he  was  himself  full 
of  aspirations  for  knowledge,  yet  ever  unsatisfied  with  his  attain- 
ments, the  character  and  career  of  Faust  so  fell  in  with  his  own 
experience,  that  he  then  conceived  the  idea  of  its  poetic  treat- 
ment. Three  years  later  the  conception  had  taken  form  within 
him,  and  he  began  to  give  it  expression ;  and  from  that  time  to 
the  last  of  his  life  he  was  busied,  though  sometimes  at  long 
intervals,  in  filling  up  the  grand  canvas  which  the  conception 
required ;  the  poem  grew  up  into  being  even  with  his  own  spirit- 
ual growth;  the  manifold  scenes  of  the  great  Dramatic  Mystery 
successively  unfolded  themselves  and  rose  to  the  view  along  with 
his  own  ever-widening  observation  and  experience ;  and  the  last 
scene  of  all,  that  scene  which  opens  to  us  glimpses  into  the  invis- 
ible world,  reached  its  consummation  only  a  year  before  the  poet's 
own  departure  from  the  earth. 

This  poem,  which  thus  represents  Goethe's  entire  life,  stands 
also  in  closest  relation  to  the  life  of  his  age,  especially  of  the 
German  people.  It  entered  into  that  life  even  as  a  vital  force, 
giving  impulse  and  character  to  its  higher  manifestations  in  liter- 
ature and  art,  and  to  the  thoughts  and  convictions  of  the  popular 
mind.  Appearing  in  a  transition  period  of  unrest  and  excite- 
ment, it  seemed  to  be  a  sovereign  word  which  all  were  waiting  to 
hear ;  it  acted  like  a  sudden  inspiration  on  all  minds  ;  all  poets, 
writers,  thinkers,  all  departments  of  intellectual  activity,  felt  its 
influence  ;  all  the  arts  of  design  united  to  reproduce  it  in  impres- 
sive forms ;  music,  too,  gave  it  utterance  in  many-voiced  song ; 
and  the  stage  exhausted  its  resources  of  scenic  talent  and  skill  to 
bring  to  the  eye  and  the  mind  of  an  enthusiastic  public  a  living 
representation  of  its  pictures  of  life  and  manners.  Probably  no 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  153 

poem  of  modern  times  has  had  so  many  readers  ;  readers  of  all 
ages  and  classes  in  society,  of  every  stage  of  intelligence  and  cul- 
ture. It  has  been  alike  the  favorite  of  the  unthinking  multitude, 
and  of  men  of  the  most  thoughtful  minds.  The  common  people 
never  tire  of  those  scenes  which  portray  the  griefs  and  the  joys 
of  ordinary  life ;  they  read  the  story  of  Margaret  for  the  hun- 
dredth time  with  an  ever  new  interest,  and  her  very  face  and 
form  seem  to  be  present  to  their  sight,  even  as  one  of  their  own 
kindred,  familiar  to  them  in  their  homes,  even  as  to  the  ancient 
Romans  the  images  of  their  ancestors  and  their  household  gods. 
Not  less  marked  has  been  its  influence  upon  the  profoundest 
thinkers ;  with  whom  it  has  been  a  cherished  companion  in  their 
hours  of  solitary  meditation  upon  the  ever  insoluble  and  ever 
fascinating  problems  of  human  being.  Niebuhr  describes  it  as  a 
book  which  touches  the  deepest  springs  of  thought  and  feeling ; 
Hegel  pauses,  in  the  midst  of  one  of  his  most  abstruse  exposi- 
tions, to  illustrate  his  doctrines  by  the  words  of  Faust ;  and 
Schelling  has  pronounced  the  poem  "an  ever  fresh  source  of 
inspiration,"  and  counsels  all  young  and  aspiring  students  to 
draw  from  its  perennial  sources  that  force  which  emanates  from 
it,  and  moves  the  innermost  soul  of  man.  The  secret  of  such  a 
popularity  lies  not  alone  in  the  poetic  and  dramatic  power  of  the 
work,  marvelous  as  this  is,  but  in  the  fact  that  all  this  marvelous 
power  is  employed  with  infinite  skill  in  representing  truths  of 
surpassing  moment  in  human  life.  It  is  more  than  a  drama, 
instinct  though  it  is  with  the  dramatic  spirit,  and  though  its  char- 
acters move  before  us  like  a  human  presence ;  it  is  more  than  a 
tragedy,  though  it  answers  the  conditions  of  tragic  poetry  by 
moving  the  passions  through  the  agency  alike  of  pity  and  of  ter- 
ror. It  is  a  dramatic  poem  of  human  life  and  destiny ;  its 
themes  involving  all  that  is  most  momentous  in  man's  being  and 
condition ;  with  a  great  poet's  insight  and  utterance,  it  tells 
through  one  form  of  human  character  and  experience  the  story 
of  man's  nature  ;  its  relations  to  God  and  the  world,  the  conflict 
of  its  passions,  its  ideal  longings  struggling  against  the  fixed  lim- 
its of  necessity,  its  perpetual  contradictions  of  strength  and  weak- 
ness, knowledge  and  ignorance,  truth  and  error;  and  above  all 
these,  and  underlying  them  all,  that  mysterious  contest,  that  awful 
antinomy,  of  good  and  of  evil. 

It  falls  in  with  what  has  now  been  said,  that  this  poem,  like 
all  the  great  poems  of  the  world,  rests,  in  its  essential  subject-mat- 


164  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

ter,  upon  the  ground  of  fact.  As  in  the  old  story  of  Antaeus,  it 
draws  its  strength  from  the  soil  of  human  experience.  The  basis 
is  real.  With  all  the  fables  that  have  gathered  about  the  name 
of  Faust,  and  formed  a  Faust  Legend,1  as  truly  as  that  of 
"  Achilles'  wrath,"  or  of  "  Pelops'  line  "  in  antiquity,  Faust  is  a 
historical  person.  We  have  not  space  even  to  indicate  the  mani- 
fold elements  of  the  legend ;  nor  need  we  narrate  all  that  is 
known  of  the  man.  His  career  belongs  to  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  time  of  the  Reformation,  and  of  the  revival  of  learning.  He 
was  born  at  Knittlingen,  a  little  town  in  Wiirtemberg,  and  a  few 
miles  from  the  birthplace  of  Melanchthon. 

Melanchthon  himself  knew  him  at  Wittenberg ;  and  there  are 
writings  extant  of  two  of  the  Reformer's  pupils,  which  record  nar- 
ratives they  had  heard  from  their  master,  in  which  he  speaks  of 
Faust  as  a  countryman  and  personal  acquaintance,  and  mentions 
facts  in  his  student-life,  and  then  denounces  him  in  words  quite 
foreign  to  the  Reformer's  usual  gentle  spirit  and  classic  style,  as 
"  a  shameful  beast,"  and  "  a  cloaca  of  many  devils."  Faust  studied 
chiefly  at  Cracow,  but  for  a  time  also  at  other  universities.  He  is 
spoken  of  as  a  Doctor  of  Theology,  and  well  versed  in  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  as  a  Doctor  of  Medicine,  and  a  famous  physician ;  also, 
as  a  mathematician  and  an  astrologer.  Melanchthon  testifies  of 
him,  in  all  sincerity,  that  he  carried  a  dog  about  with  him,  who 
was  the  devil  in  disguise ;  also  that  he  boasted  that  by  his  skill 
in  magic  he  had  won  for  the  emperor  all  his  victoies  over  the 
French.  He  speculated,  it  was  said,  day  and  night ;  and  in  his 
ambition  for  superhuman  knowledge  and  power,  gave  himself  to 
magic  arts,  and  leagued  himself  with  the  devil,  and  after  a  law- 
less career  came  to  a  dreadful  end.  Such  are  the  chief  things 
told  of  Faust  by  men  of  the  time,  celebrated  for  learning  and 
piety ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that,  in  an  age  and  among  a  people 
where  witchcraft  was  believed  in  with  a  more  than  New  England 
faith,  the  fame  of  Faust  soon  ran  over  all  Germany  and  Europe, 
growing  ever  larger  as  it  ran,  and  tales  were  told  without  num- 
ber of  his  conjurations  and  mighty  magic.  These  elements,  the 
real  and  the  fictitious,  of  the  Faust  story,  Goethe  has  wrought, 
by  his  genius  and  his  art,  into  a  new  creation,  a  Faust  of  his  own, 
into  Goethe's  Faust ;  it  is  the  old  air  with  variations,  but  such 

1  The  completest  view  that  we  have  seen  of  the  Faust  Legend  is  contained 
in  Heinrich  Diintzer's  Goethe's  Faust  published  at  Leipsic,  1857.  The  work 
contains,  also,  a  very  valuable  commentary  on  both  parts  of  the  poem. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  155 

variations  as  could  emanate  only  from  an  original  genius  ;  the 
conception  of  character  is  the  same,  but  it  is  recast  in  a  finer  and 
grander  mould,  ennobled  and  enriched  by  that  faculty  so  rich  in 
Goethe,  which  Milton  calls  a  "  universal  insight  into  things,"  and 
set  forth  and  adorned  with  a  wealth  of  poetic  beauty,  "  which  has 
in  it  everything  of  enchantment  which  a  magician  could  either 
give  or  desire." 

We  propose  to  take  such  a  survey  of  the  poem  as  may  serve 
to  show  its  moral  significance ;  to  endeavor  to  bring  out  the  form 
of  character  which  it  presents,  and  the  several  stages  of  its  career, 
together  with  the  lessons  it  teaches. 

At  the  outset  we  have  the  poet's  guidance  for  the  foreshadow- 
ing, in  the  Prologue,  of  the  moral  conditions  of  the  life  of  Faust. 
It  is  called  the  Prologue  in  Heaven,  and  is  constructed  upon  the 
model  of  the  Introduction  of  the  Book  of  Job.  We  are  lifted,  in 
imagination,  to  the  courts  of  heaven,  to  the  very  presence-cham- 
ber of  the  Lord.  In  those  heavenly  hosts  that  throng  around  in 
shining  ranks,  and  in  Mephistopheles,  who  comes  also  to  present 
himself  before  the  Lord,  we  seem  to  touch,  at  their  very  springs 
in  the  invisible  world,  the  powers  of  good  and  evil,  which  are  to 
invest  with  their  mysterious  conflict  of  agency  the  life  of  a  hu- 
man being  on  earth.  The  voices  of  archangels  utter  forth,  in 
adoring,  jubilant  song,  the  high  praises  of  God ;  the  sun  round- 
ing his  appointed  course,  and  ringing  out  his  rival  accord  in  the 
music  of  the  spheres,  the  pomp  of  the  swift  revolving  earth,  its 
brightness  of  day  alternating  with  awful  night,  the  foaming  ocean 
heaving  up  in  its  broad  floods,  —  these,  and  all  His  sublime  works, 
past  comprehending,  are  glorious  as  on  time's  first  day.  But  this 
celestial  harmony  is  broken  in  upon  by  one  voice  of  discord,  the 
voice  of  Mephistopheles,  who  draws  near  and  addresses  the  Lord 
in  words  which  are  his  alone,  as  the  spirit  of  scoffing  and  contra- 
diction, as  the  accuser  and  tempter  of  men.  He  has  naught  to 
say  of  suns  and  spheres,  he  only  sees  how  man  is  vexing  himself, 
the  little  god  of  the  world,  who  is  just  as  odd  a  creature  as  at  the 
first.  Far  better  off  would  he  be  if  he  had  not  in  him  the  glim- 
mering light  of  reason,  which  he  uses  only  to  make  himself  lower 
than  the  brutes  themselves.  "  Dr.  Faust "  in  particular  seems  to 
him,  if  a  servant  of  the  Lord  at  all,  to  serve  him  in  the  strangest 
fashion.  He  will  have  the  brightest  stars  of  heaven,  and  the  high- 
est joys  of  earth,  and  both  together  leave  him  all  unsatisfied. 
The  tempter  asks  only  that  he  may  have  him  under  his  guidance, 


156  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

and  he  shall  be  utterly  lost  to  the  Lord's  service.  The  Lord  re- 
plies, that  Faust  wanders  now  in  perplexity ;  he  may  be  brought 
out  by  and  by  into  clearness ;  the  adversary  may  tempt  him,  so 
long  as  he  is  on  earth,  since  man  is  subject  to  temptation  during 
all  his  earthly  probation  ;  this  human  soul  he  may  drag  down  to 
his  own  path  if  he  can  ;  but  at  last  baffled  and  in  shame,  he  may 
have  to  confess  that  "  a  good  man  in  his  dark  strivings  is  con- 
scious of  the  right  way." 

In  the  opening  scene  we  are  introduced  to  Faust,  in  his  study 
at  night,  in  the  midst  of  his  books,  where,  in  intellectual  pursuits, 
his  life  has  hitherto  exclusively  lain.  Conscious  of  the  highest 
powers  of  thought,  and  instinct  with  boundless  desires,  that  yearn 
after  all,  and  more  than  all,  that  man  can  ever  attain,  he  has  been 
striving  with  the  vehemence  of  a  character  far  less  wise  than 
strong  and  noble,  for  the  conquest  of  absolute  truth.  But  alas ! 
the  tree  of  knowledge,  always  one  of  good  or  of  evil,  according  to 
the  spirit  of  the  soul  that  gathers  its  fruit,  has  yielded  him  only 
vexation  and  disappointment.  A  generous  avarice  for  intellectual 
wealth  has  been  his  master  passion ;  but  it  was  avarice  still,  and 
left  his  soul  in  a  sense  of  spiritual  need,  because  he  lacked  the 
virtues  of  content  and  moderation,  and  faith  and  love,  and  rever- 
ent submission  to  the  conditions  of  all  human  endeavor.  He  has 
compassed  the  circle  of  university  learning,  has  mastered  philoso- 
phy, law,  medicine,  and  theology  too ;  he  has  won  all  titles  and 
dignities  of  scholastic  life,  he  has  enjoyed  an  enviable  celebrity  as 
professor  these  ten  years  past ;  but  the  result  of  all  is  no  inward 
satisfaction,  no  revelation  yet  of  the  secrets  of  the  world ;  and  he 
sits  now  brooding  over  the  dismal  conviction,  that  all  knowledge 
is  vain,  all  knowing  impossible.  Gone,  utterly  gone,  is  the  fancy 
that  he  can  know  anything  himself,  or  teach  anything  that  can 
better  mankind.  So  it  was  once  in  the  poet's  own  experience,  as 
he  has  himself  recorded  it :  "I  too  had  ranged  through  the  whole 
round  of  knowledge,  and  was  early  enough  led  to  see  its  vanity ;  " 
and  a  wiser  than  either  has  told  the  same  sad  story :  "  And  I  gave 
my  heart  to  know  wisdom ;  and  I  perceived  that  this  also  is  vexa- 
tion of  spirit.  For  in  much  wisdom  is  much  grief,  and  he  that 
increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow."  With  this  despair  of 
knowledge,  Faust  painfully  feels  how  he  has,  in  the  mean  time, 
lost  all  chance  of  earthly  happiness.  He  looks  forth  from  his 
gloom,  upon  the  brilliant  arena  of  the  world,  and  sees  how  men 
have  won  its  fair  prizes  of  wealth  and  pleasure,  and  rank  and 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  157 

power,  and  it  maddens  him  now  to  think  that  all  these,  which  in 
his  eager  pursuit  of  truth  he  has  ignored  and  despised,  he  has 
now  sacrificed  and  lost.  And  this  is  the  running  over  of  his  cup 
of  bitterness. 

What  now  can  he  do  ?  It  is  not  in  his  nature  to  succumb,  and 
make  peace  with  his  condition.  No ;  by  some  hitherto  untried 
means,  he  is  still  bent  upon  reaching  the  goal  towards  which  he 
has  been  striving ;  he  insists  upon  the  absolute  satisfaction  of  his 
desires  for  knowledge.  Despairing  of  this  attainment  by  his  own 
faculties,  he  will  call  to  his  aid  supernatural  agencies.  Extremes 
meet ;  and  this  man  of  Promethean  nature,  who  has  aspired  to 
possess  himself  by  his  own  intellectual  force  of  the  secrets  of 
heaven,  will  superstitiously  invoke  fancied  powers  of  the  spirit 
world,  who  shall  reveal  to  him,  in  open  vision,  the  mysteries  of 
the  universe.  With  this  new  purpose  hope  revives  once  more ; 
the  ardor  of  his  passionate  soul  is  all  aglow  again ;  he  plunges 
into  the  books  of  magic,  and  studies  its  signs  and  spells.  As  he 
gazes  upon  the  sign  of  the  Macrocosm,  the  mystic  sign  of  the  uni- 
verse, he  feels  the  presence  of  hovering  spirits,  on  whom  he  calls. 
The  inward  tumult  is  stilled,  as  the  powers  of  nature  seem  to  be 
unveiling  all  about  him.  His  poor  heart  fills  with  joy,  as  he  dis- 
cerns the  harmony  of  forces,  which  live  in  the  vast  frame  of  the 
world,  the  ceaseless  energy  of  their  reciprocal  action,  all  weaving 
themselves  into  the  whole,  and  each  working  and  living  in  the 
other.  But  too  soon  he  finds  that  all  this  is  for  him  but  a  majes- 
tic show,  phenomena  alone,  brilliant  as  they  are ;  of  these  harmo- 
nious forces  he  has  himself  no  immediate  apprehension ;  the 
sources  of  life  he  cannot  penetrate  ;  the  spirits  he  invokes  answer 
not,  for  over  them  he  has  no  power.  Baffled  here,  he  turns  him 
to  another  mystic  sign,  that  of  the  spirit  of  the  elemental  world, 
the  spirit  of  the  earth.  To  this  he  finds  himself  more  nearly  al- 
lied ;  of  this  spirit  he  may  aspire  to  be  a  peer ;  he  is  proudly  con- 
scious of  entire  manhood,  strong  to  know  all  and  brave  all  that 
belongs  to  earth,  to  carry  in  him  all  its  weal  and  all  its  woe.  He 
feels  the  spirit  to  be  near,  close  at  hand,  scarce  veiled  from  his 
sight ;  and  in  the  hope  that  he  is  now  to  have  pure  insight  into 
the  very  being  of  nature,  and  with  every  faculty  strained  to  wel- 
come the  revealing,  he  must  call,  he  must  be  heard,  though  it  cost 
him  his  life.  But  at  the  very  moment  when  what  he  has  so  hotly 
wished  appears,  and  the  spirit  stands  before  him  in  all  its  flaming 
glory,  he  cannot  bear  the  sight,  and,  horror-struck,  turns  him  away 


158  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

and  hides  his  face.  Now  he  must  hear  the  spirit's  awful  rebuke 
for  his  arrogant  pride,  in  defying  the  limits  that  bound  man,  and 
in  presuming  to  match  himself  with  spirits.  He  must  learn  that 
he  is  like  the  spirit  he  can  comprehend,  not  that  one  he  has  >  sum- 
moned as  his  equal ;  man  may  not  gaze  into  the  inner  heart  of 
Nature ;  her  mysterious  being  and  force  are  hidden  from  his  view ; 
the  ever-changing  life  of  the  world  is  only  the  vesture  of  the 
Deity ;  man  may  not  see  God  at  any  time,  only  his  manifestations 
can  he  see  and  know. 

Disappointed  in  these  new  hopes,  and  rudely  thrust  back  upon 
the  dim  lot  of  mortals,  Faust  sinks  down  in  humiliation  to  his 
own  bitter  reflections.  He  looks  over  all  his  career,  and  contrasts 
this  despair  of  his  manhood  with  the  glowing  hopes  of  youth, 
when  his  soul  exulted  in  constant  progress,  when  fair  visions  of 
rising  truth  made  all  bright  the  horizon  before  him.  The  myste- 
ries of  man's  double  being,  the  material  and  the  spiritual,  the  ideal 
and  the  real,  press  upon  his  soul  with  all  their  awful  weight.  He 
is  bitterly  conscious  how  man  finds  his  finest  spiritual  desires 
humbled  and  withered  by  the  earthly  element  that  clings  to  him, 
and  is  all  about  him.  The  claims  of  every-day  life  press  down 
with  rudest  force  our  noblest  aspirations ;  the  glorious  feelings 
that  have  made  our  inner  life  are  deadened  by  contact  with  the 
world,  and  our  high  ideals,  that  have  risen  so  grandly  before  the 
soul,  melt  and  pass  away  at  the  touch  of  ugly  reality.  Such 
thoughts  as  these  possessing  the  soul  of  Faust,  the  sight  of  his 
books,  for  so  many  years  his  chosen  companions,  is  now  odious ; 
the  study,  where  alone  has  been  his  home,  is  now  a  very  dungeon ; 
nay,  the  world  itself  only  a  prison,  its  walls  bounding  him  on  all 
sides,  so  massive  they  cannot  be  pierced,  so  high  he  cannot  scale 
them.  As  he  gazes  in  despair  on  all  the  objects  around  him,  the 
shelves  of  gloomy  volumes,  the  ghastly  array  of  instruments  of 
science,  a  bright  shining  phial  of  poison  fastens  his  eye  like  a 
magnet.  He  grasps  it  and  greets  it  devoutly  as  the  hope  and  de- 
liverance of  his  perplexed  soul.  Those  sweet,  sparkling  juices, 
once  mixed  by  himself  with  cunning  hand,  shall  bear  him  in  peace 
to  new  shores  and  lasting  day.  By  their  friendly  agency,  more 
potent  than  study  or  magic,  he  shall  pass  quietly  out  of  his  prison 
limits,  and,  as  a  free  spirit,  range  in  the  bright  regions  of  pure 
and  perfect  knowledge.  He  is  raising  the  cup  to  his  lips,  when 
from  the  adjoining  church  there  breaks  upon  his  ear  the  Easter 
song  of  the  angels,  chanting  the  great  theme  of  the  resurrection,  — 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  159 

"  Christ  is  arisen  ! 
Joy  be  to  mortal  man  ! 
Whom,  since  the  world  began, 

Evils  inherited, 

By  his  sins  merited, 
Through  his  sins  creeping, 
Sin  bound  are  keeping." 

His  rash  hand  is  stayed,  his  purpose  arrested,  his  soul  deeply 
moved  as  he  listens.  Strange  power  of  music  that  so  calms  his 
surging  passions;  strange  the  power  of  mental  association,  that 
sounds,  falling  upon  his  ear,  so  strike  the  electric  chain  of  thought 
and  feeling  as  to  flash  before  him  all  the  forgotten  past,  and  give 
such  force  to  the  memories  of  innocent  childhood,  when  faith  and 
knowledge  went  hand  in  hand,  and  believing  and  doing  were  one. 
He  listens  to  the  message  of  those  Easter  sounds,  though  they 
speak  to  no  faith  in  his  own  heart.  No  longer  can  he  aspire  to 
those  spheres  whence  those  good  tidings  come ;  but  those  old  fa- 
miliar strains,  heard  in  his  childhood,  have  power  yet  to  call  him 
back  to  life. 

"  Now  memories  sweet, 

Fraught  with  the  feelings  of  my  childhood's  prime, 

From  the  last  step  decisive  stay  my  feet. 

Oh  !  peal,  sweet  heavenly  anthems,  peal  as  then  ! 

Tears  flood  mine  eyes,  earth  has  her  child  again." 

Faust  has  now  reached  a  crisis  of  great  moral  peril,  when,  for 
a  brief  season,  it  is  not  clear  whether  he  will  go  on  in  a  path  of 
error  or  turn  back  to  right.  This  transition  stage  Goethe  repre- 
sents in  a  series  of  scenes,  which  hurry  us  forward,  with  an  ever- 
heightening  interest,  awakened  both  by  their  poetic  and  their 
moral  power,  to  the  catastrophe  of  the  first  part  of  the  poem,  in 
Faust's  fall,  and  the  tragedy  of  Margaret.  We  are  to  see  how 
transient  is  the  sacred  stillness  that  has  come  from  that  Easter 
hymn ;  how  soon  come  back  upon  him  all  the  old,  restless  desires, 
the  dull,  gloomy  discontent ;  how,  with  the  extinction  of  all  faith, 
his  before  dormant  passions  awake,  and  assert  their  claims,  till 
turning  his  back  upon  all  his  high  aspirings,  he  is  ready  to  join 
hands  with  Mephistopheles,  the  spirit  of  evil,  with  whom  he  has 
been  all  the  while  unconsciously  in  parley. 

We  see  Faust  next,  no  longer  in  his  study,  but  in  the  midst  of 
nature  and  of  the  moving  throngs  of  men.  It  is  springtime,  when 
Nature  is  renewing  her  glories ;  it  is  the  afternoon  of  the  festive 
Easter-day,  and  the  common  people,  all  strangers  to  the  strivings 


160  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

which  have  so  embittered  the  life  of  the  recluse  student,  are  hur- 
rying forth  from  the  haunts  of  daily  toil  and  care,  in  quest  of  hol- 
iday mirth  and  pleasure.  Faust  has  at  his  side  \i\sfamulus  Wag- 
ner, the  very  antipode  of  himself, 'a  dry,  plodding  man,  a  disciple 
of  the  letter,  and  not  of  the  spirit,  who  has  taken  to  books  and 
study  as  a  means  of  getting  on  in  the  world,  and  who,  in  his  dull 
level  of  mediocrity,  fancies  himself  a  match  for  the  Dii  Majores 
of  the  learned  world.  Goethe  treats  him  with  infinite  skill  as  a 
foil  to  Faust ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  finest  of  the  many  contrasts  of 
the  poem.  Faust  enters  into  the  scenes  of  life  about  him  with  all 
the  deep-moved  sensibilities  of  a  strong  nature.  It  delights  him 
to  see  river  and  rill  all  free  again,  to  see  the  fields  again  green 
with  promise.  He  beholds,  with  a  strange  joy,  the  gay  multitude 
of  men  and  women,  straying  in  parties  over  garden  and  field,  and 
blithely  basking  in  the  sunshine  to-day,  and  making  the  spring 
air  ring  with  their  hearty  glee  of  shout  and  cheer.  Ah !  thinks 
he,  what  pleasure  is  here !  How  much  wiser  these  simple  people 
than  I,  for  they  know  how  to  be  happy !  But  by  and  by,  while 
he  is  gazing  upon  the  setting  sun,  as  he  gilds  the  landscape  with 
his  departing  rays,  and  is  speeding  on  to  light  up  other  scenes, 
the  sight  reminds  him  how  darkness  has  just  set  upon  his  bright 
hopes,  and  starts  into  new  life  all  his  infinite  desires,  and  he  longs 
for  friendly  wings,  that  he  may  strive  after  the  bright  god  in  his 
glorious  course.  Then  he  might  soar  above  this  narrow  spot  of 
earth  to  regions  of  serene  air,  night  left  behind  him,  day  always 
before  him,  and  the  heavens  above  all  bathed  in  undying  light. 
But  even  while  he  dreams,  the  sun  is  gone.  Another  glorious 
dream,  a  bright  delusion,  but  of  briefest  possession,  a  type  of  all 
our  noblest  aspirations !  The  learned  Wagner  at  his  side  cannot 
comprehend  his  master's  mood.  He,  too,  he  says,  has  had  his 
fanciful  hours,  but  was  never  stirred  by  such  impulses  as  these. 
He  soon  gets  sated  at  looking  on  fields  and  woods,  and  never  in 
his  life  did  he  covet  a  bird's  wings,  that  he  might  fly  away  through 
the  air.  His  are  the  joys  of  mind,  and  he  has  his  charmed  hours, 
when,  in  the  long  winter  nights,  he  communes  with  books.  Ah ! 
when  he  can  unroll  a  precious  parchment,  then  all  heaven  comes 
down  into  his  soul.  Faust  tells  him  that  he  knows  only  the  one 
impulse  of  the  human  soul,  let  him  never  know  the  other.  Within 
his  own  breast  are  dwelling  two  souls,  the  one  struggling  to  be 
severed  from  the  other ;  the  one  cleaves  to  the  earth,  with  organs 
like  clamps  of  steel,  the  other  lifts  itself  from  the  mists  of  earth 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  161 

to  its  ancestral  skies.  His  longing  desires  are  inflamed  with  the 
more  ardor  by  contact  with  so  different  a  nature  as  Wagner's. 
While  Wagner  describes  the  joy  which  his  studies  yield  him, 
Faust  feels  more  than  ever  the  weight  of  his  own  lot,  in  which, 
despairing  of  knowledge,  he  hates  the  very  thought  of  books.  He 
has  in  him  already  the  rising  desire  to  exchange  "  gray  theory  for 
the  golden  fruits  of  life."  He  would  fain  range  abroad  in  the 
world,  and  musing  no  more  over  dull  learning,  restore  his  tortured 
soul  in  the  manifold  interchange  of  enjoyment  and  of  life.  Oh, 
that  the  spirits  that  float  between  earth  and  heaven  would  come 
down  and  bear  him  on  their  pinions  to  new  and  varied  existence ! 
Oh,  for  a  magic  mantle  to  waft  him  away  to  far-off  worlds ! 

Next  we  find  Faust  in  his  study  again,  returned  from  his  walk, 
and  bringing  from  it  a  frame  of  mind  softened  by  the  scenes  he 
has  witnessed  without,  as  well  as  by  the  gathering  shades  of 
evening.  The  better  soul  seems  to  be  awake  within  him;  he 
will  persuade  himself  that  his  wild  desires  are  now  in  slumber; 
that  the  love  of  man  and  the  love  of  God  are  now  rekindling 
in  his  heart.  Soon,  however,  he  discovers  this  to  be  a  delusion, 
the  influence  rather  of  recollections  than  of  present  thoughts  and 
feelings.  He  must  soon  confess  to  himself  that  the  wished-for 
peace  is  not  within  him  ;  that  strive  as  he  may,  it  will  never 
more  well  up  in  his  heart.  In  his  extremity  he  will  turn  to 
divine  revelation,  to  the  New  Testament.  He  will  translate  a 
passage  from  the  original  into  his  dear  native  tongue.  He  seizes 
the  book  and  opens  to  the  first  chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  John. 
But  how  can  he,  whose  faith  has  disappeared,  approach  the  Bible 
with  that  humility  and  trust  which  are  the  necessary  conditions 
of  its  healing  and  saving  powers?  On  the  very  first  verse  he 
is  at  a  stand,  he  is  mastered  by  the  spirit  of  contradiction,  which 
drives  him  to  a  downright  denial  of  the  language  of  Scripture. 
"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word?"  No,  "The  Word"  cannot 
be  put  at  so  high  a  value  as  that;  certainly  it  was  not  that 
which  was  "  in  the  beginning."  And  so,  by  a  purely  subjective 
process  of  criticism,  he  sets  himself  to  inquiring  and  establishing 
for  himself  what  was  in  the  beginning,  and  finally  writes,  "In 
the  beginning  was  the  Deed."  Thus  the  inwrought  skepticism 
of  his  mind,  which  has  returned  unsatisfied  from  all  his  investi- 
gations, comes  into  fatal  conflict  with  the  childlike  faith  which 
the  Scriptures  teach  and  require ;  by  and  by  the  general  convic- 
tion that  all  human  life  is  but  a  bitter  jugglery  seizes  him  more 


162  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

strongly  than  ever ;  he  is  ashamed  of  the  weak  emotion  that 
kept  him  back  yesterday  from  breaking  away  from  such  a  world 
as  this.  That,  too,  was  only  a  delusion,  which  cheated  the  little 
remnant  he  had  of  childlike  feelings  by  memories  of  a  happy 
past ;  and  so  with  all  feelings  that  seem  to  promise  satisfaction ; 
they  are  only  cozening  and  deceitful  powers  to  bind  us  by  their 
mocking  fascinations  to  this  dreary  den  of  the  world.  With  an 
awful  desperation  of  soul  he  is  now  ready  to  break  with  everything ; 
he  utters  curses  on  all  the  finest  feelings  of  man's  heart,  all  the 
virtues  and  tender  graces  of  life,  hope,  faith,  love,  and,  above  all, 
patience ;  and  shattering  with  one  blow  the  moral  world,  throws 
himself  into  the  companionship  of  the  fiend,  to  make  in  his  company 
the  perilous  transfer  of  his  strivings  from  those  higher  regions  where 
he  has  found  no  satisfaction,  to  the  lower  arena  of  sengual  enjoy- 
ment, where  he  is  destined  to  a  far  more  awful  disappointment. 

It  is  here  that  Goethe  draws  from  the  legend,  and  represents 
according  to  his  own  conceptions,  the  league  of  Faust  with  Me- 
phistopheles.  Indeed,  in  the  scenes  over  which  we  have  now 
been  passing,  he  has  represented  Faust's  gradual  approaches  to 
evil  by  the  presence  of  Mephistopheles  in  various  fantastic  forms ; 
but  now  that  the  hour  has  come,  and  all  is  ready  for  the  tempter, 
he  is  made  to  reveal  himself  in  human  form,  and  talk  with  him 
as  man  to  man.  Goethe's  Mephistopheles  is  no  mere  poetic  per- 
sonification of  evil  in  man,  of  the  perverse  tendency  of  the  human 
will ;  such  a  creation  were  only  an  enlarged  alter  ego  of  Faust, 
and  a  very  tame  and  lifeless  dramatic  figure.  He  is  made  to 
represent  moral  evil  as  a  reality  existing  independently  of  the 
poet's  fancy,  and  only  capable  of  personification  because  it  has 
such  an  independent  existence ;  he  represents  moral  evil  existing 
as  such  a  reality,  not  merely  in  man,  but  beyond  man;  moral 
evil,  as  a  real  power,  everywhere  and  actively  existing,  and  only 
to  oppose,  and  disturb,  and  destroy  all  that  is  fair  and  true  and 
good  in  the  world;  in  Goethe's  own  language,  Mephistopheles 
is  the  spirit  that  "  evermore  denies ;  what  is  called  sin,  mischief, 
in  short,  evil,  —  is  his  proper  element."  It  is  this  dread  power 
we  are  now  to  see,  not  only  personified,  but  in  human  form,  in 
closest  union  with  the  destiny  of  Faust ;  to  tempt,  and,  if  he  may, 
drag  him  down  to  perdition  ;  to  be  a  chosen  and  sworn  companion, 
a  guide  and  servant,  through  all  his  probation  in  the  present; 
whether  at  last,  and  in  the  endless  future,  to  be  his  master,  we 
can  only  now  divine  from  the  intimations  in  the  Prologue. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  163 

It  is  essential  to  observe  how  Goethe  conceives  the  moral 
condition  of  Faust  through  the  scene  of  his  contract  with  Me- 
phistopheles.  The  decisive  moment,  when  the  contracting  parties 
come  face  to  face,  is  that  in  which  the  imprecations  upon  all 
good  things  have  just  come  forth  from  the  lips  of  Faust.  As 
a  prelude  to  the  offers  of  Mephistopheles,  we  hear  the  chorus 
of  evil  spirits,  mourning,  with  an  awful  irony  of  melodious  song, 
the  overthrow  of  so  fair  a  world,  all  its  beauty  now  crushed 
and  lost,  and  calling  upon  the  destroyer  to  build  up  a  new  world, 
fairer  and  more  glorious,  to  begin  a  career  of  action  and  pleasure, 
on  which  all  siren  voices  shall  chime  in  his  ears.  Striking  the 
key-note  of  this  fiendish  song,  Mephistoplifeles  bids  Faust  no  longer 
sit  here,  a  melancholy,  despairing  dreamer,  but  forth  with  him 
into  the  living  world  of  men.  He  will  be  his  companion,  his 
servant,  to  bear  him  to  a  more  congenial  sphere  than  that  of 
dull,  unsatisfying  thought ;  let  him  only  bind  himself  to  him, 
and  he  shall  have  satisfying  joys  at  last ;  more  shall  be  his  than 
eye  of  man  has  ever  seen.  Faust  replies  that  he  has,  indeed, 
too  proudly  dreamed,  that  he  has  soared  too  high,  and  that  now 
the  chain  of  thought  has  snapped,  and  all  knowledge  is  to  him 
a  loathing.  He  is  ready  to  rush  into  the  tumult  of  passion,  and 
as  he  cannot  pierce  the  mysteries  of  knowledge,  he  will  fathom 
the  depths  of  feeling.  He  will  experience  all,  whether  of  pain 
or  of  pleasure,  that  can  fall  to  the  lot  of  universal  man.  Yet 
of  satisfying  joys  he  will  not  hear ;  least  of  all  can  such  a  one 
as  Mephistopheles,  who  cannot  comprehend  the  strivings  of  the 
mind  of  man,  give  him  aught  that  can  yield  the  satisfaction  he 
craves.  Indeed,  so  confident  is  he  in  this  conviction,  that  he 
passionately  lays  the  wager,  that  if  ever  he  is  lulled  to  security 
by  sensual  enjoyments,  if  ever  he  says  to  the  passing  moment, 
"  Stay,  thou  art  so  fair !  "  that  day  shall  be  his  last,  and  the  last 
of  Mephistopheles'  service. 

"  The  clock  may  stand,  the  index  fall, 
And  time  and  tide  may  cease  for  me." 

Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  Faust  will  plunge  into  the  tumult  of 
sense,  as  a  new  arena  of  activity  for  his  restless  desires ;  he 
ventures  the  perilous  companionship  with  evil,  proudly  confident 
that  it  shall  never  be  his  master,  and  excusing  himself  with  the 
delusive  plea  that  in  his  extremity  he  has  no  other  alternative. 
On  the  other  hand,  Mephistopheles  sees  in  Faust  already  a  sure 
victim ;  he  gloats  over  the  assurance  that  soon  he  shall  bring 


164  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

down  this  high-soaring  soul  with  him  to  his  own  place ;  he  shall 
be  whirled  round  and  round  in  the  eddies  of  appetite  and  passion, 
and  at  last  be  drawn  into  the  vortex,  to  be  lost  forever  in  the 
abyss.  With  such  a  contract,  signed  and  sealed  with  blood,  they 
go  forth  into  the  world  together. 

We  do  not  propose  to  dwell  upon  the  first  scene  in  Faust's  new 
career,  the  Auerbach  Cellar  in  Leipsic ;  a  famous  drinking-place, 
which  has  still  a  great  renown  for  its  traditions  of  the  real  Faust's 
most  famous  feats  of  magic.  Here  Faust  is  to  be  addressed  by 
the  coarsest  forms  of  enjoyment,  in  a  drinking-bout  of  German 
students,  where  bad  wine  and  worse  wit  make  up  the  sorry  enter- 
tainment of  the  night.  But  he  is  ill  at  ease  in  all  this  wassailing, 
he  has  no  heart  for  it,  and  is  glad  when  he  has  it  all  behind  him. 
We  need  also  only  touch  upon  the  next  scene,  the  Witches' 
Kitchen,  where  witchery  is  to  renew  the  youth  of  Faust,  and 
wake  in  him  youth's  wildest  passions.  Revolting  as  is  this  scene, 
it  has  a  rightful  place  in  the  drama.  Even  as  the  fatal  temptation 
of  Macbeth  is  set  forth  by  the  prophetic  greeting  of  the  witches 
on  the  blasted  heath,  so  Faust  comes  into  this  den  of  sorcery  to 
be  touched  and  tainted  by  spiritual  impurity,  and  at  last  to  be 
seized  and  held  spell-bound  by  its  foul  fascinations.  Though  at 
first  he  expresses  himself  as  disgusted  at  the  loathsome  creatures 
about  him,  yet  by  and  by  he  is  infected  by  their  atmosphere ;  he 
drinks  the  witches'  potion,  and  it  works  on  his  brain  like  madness ; 
he  sees  in  the  magic  mirror  the  form  of  a  beautiful  woman,  and 
straightway  desires  blaze  up  within  him  he  has  never  known 
before.  He  hurries  from  the  spot,  Mephistopheles  promising  him 
the  sight  in  the  real  world  of  the  fairest  of  women ;  and  directly 
Margaret  appears  upon  the  scene,  whose  beauty  and  goodness  are 
destined  to  make  her  the  object  and  the  victim  of  his  passionate 
and  unhallowed  love. 

We  enter  now  the  charmed  circle  of  those  scenes  in  which  the 
genius  and  art  of  Goethe  have  wrought,  from  the  realities  of 
humblest  human  life,  the  moving  tragedy  of  Margaret.  On  this 
part  of  the  poem  we  would  gladly  linger  long,  but  we  must  re- 
member that  these  scenes,  for  most  readers,  of  paramount,  and 
for  all,  of  such  absorbing  interest,  while  they  are  a  tragic  whole 
in  the  narrower  lot  of  Margaret,  are  only  a  tragic  passage  in 
Faust's  life,  out  of  which  he  is  to  struggle  into  other  spheres  of 
experience  and  action.  Though  we  move  here  among  forms  of 
ethereal  poetic  beauty,  yet  all  is  in  spirit  intensely,  terribly  real ; 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  165 

the  characters,  incidents,  experiences,  are  all  human ;  so  human 
that  they  have  readiest  speech  for  every  reader ;  it  is  the  music  of 
humanity  that  we  hear,  from  its  strains  of  ecstatic  joy  down  to  its 
wildest  wail  of  woe,  all  the  passions  in  turn  "  snatching  the 
instruments  of  sound,  and  proving  their  own  expressive  power." 
It  is  a  story  of  love,  seduction,  and  ruin ;  ruin  involving  not  only 
Margaret  herself,  but  all  that  still  peaceful  world  of  her  home, 
with  its  priceless  possessions  of  innocence,  affection,  and  piety ;  a 
wide-spreading  ruin,  gathering,  as  it  spreads,  the  quick  following 
horrors  of  her  mother's  death-sleep  by  a  draught  given  her  at 
Faust's  suggestion,  the  killing  of  her  brother  in  a  duel  by  her 
lover,  and,  by  arid  by,  child-murder  by  the  outcast  and  crazed 
mother ;  and,  at  last,  her  peace  gone,  her  good  name,  her  earthly 
hopes,  everything  gone,  save  her  penitence  and  her  faith  in  the 
divine  mercy,  —  her  own  imprisonment  and  execution.  No  sweeter 
creation  than  Margaret  ever  arose  out  of  poet's  imagination.  Such 
innocence  is  hers,  such  artless  simplicity,  such  a  sound,  natural 
sense,  in  short,  such  an  exquisite  naturalness  of  character ;  poor 
in  all  worldly  things,  but  rich  in  the  charms  of  person  and  the 
inner  graces  of  woman's  nature,  pure  instincts,  all  deep,  true 
feelings,  —  a  sweet  and  virtuous  soul;  how  can  you  imagine,  as 
you  first  see  her  issuing  from  the  church  on  that  fatal  day,  that 
even  now  invisible  evil  spirits  lurk  for  her  coming,  that  the  demon 
of  destruction  has  marked  her  for  his  own?  She  secures  our  sym- 
pathy and  affection  at  the  very  first,  and,  even  to  the  bitter  end, 
loses  them  never.  We  are  strangely  touched,  as  we  see  the  first 
rising  of  love  in  her  soul ;  as  we  hear  her  ingenuous  wonder,  what 
so  great  a  man  can  see  in  so  simple  a  creature  as  herself ;  we  joy 
with  her  when  she  reaches  the  full  consciousness  that  he  is  really 
hers,  and  she  is  wholly  his ;  we  can  revere  and  bow  before  the 
devotion  of  her  love  in  her  solicitude  about  her  lover's  faith,  and 
the  fine  sense  of  her  heart,  that  makes  her  shrink  with  horror 
from  "  that  man  he  has  with  him,"  on  whose  very  brow  she  sees  it 
written,  "  that  he  can  love  no  living  soul."  And  after  her  fall, 
how  we  mourn  with  her  in  her  unutterable  sorrow ;  we  shudder  at 
the  horrors  of  her  remorse  in  the  cathedral,  when  the  terrible 
words  of  the  "  Dies  Irae  "  sound  in  her  affrighted  ears ;  we  bend 
and  must  needs  pray  with  her  in  the  penitent,  heart-rending  grief 
of  that  prayer  to  the  Virgin  which  no  one  can  read  or  hear  with 
dry  eyes ;  and  when  at  last,  in  the  dungeon,  she  submits  herself  in 
trusting  faith,  to  the  judgment  of  God,  that  voice  from  above,  "  is 


166  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

saved,"  gives  us  a  sweet  relief,  in  the  assurance  we  were  so  ready 
to  receive,  that  the  weary  one  is  forever  at  rest,  where  the  wicked 
cease  from  troubling. 

But  the  spiritual  history  of  Faust  himself,  as  it  is  portrayed  in 
these  scenes,  awakens  an  interest  no  less  powerful.  Horace  has 
asserted  that  poets  are  better  moralists  than  philosophers,  that 
men  learn  more  ethics  from  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  than  from  the 
treatises  of  Chrysippus  and  Grantor.  And  certainly  these  fine 
delineations  of  the  workings  of  man's  moral  nature  in  conflict 
with  excited  passion,  and  the  impressive  lessons  they  have  fast- 
ened in  the  minds  of  thousands  of  readers,  go  far  to  establish  the 
Roman  poet's  position.  As  in  the  thoughtful  poem  of  Tenny- 
son, we  hear  the  "  Two  Voices  "  within  the  soul  of  man,  in  their 
alternations  of  passionate  longing  and  of  awful  remonstrance, 
indeed,  we  may  rather  say,  we  see  in  action  the  conflict  described 
by  an  inspired  pen,  and  we  hear  the  lamentation  extorted  from 
conscious  weakness  of  humanity,  "  Oh,  wretched  man  that  I  am !  " 

•4  7 

And  before  we  leave  the  first  part  of  the  poem,  the  story  of  which 
we  have  now  sufficiently  told,  let  us  dwell  for  a  brief  space  upon 
one  or  two  of  the  decisive  moments  of  this  contest  within  the 
breast  of  Faust. 

We  select,  for  the  first  illustration,  the  scene  in  which  Faust  is 
brought  by  Mephistopheles  to  the  chamber  of  Margaret  in  her 
absence.  Faust  has  seen  Margaret  and  is  enamored  of  her.  He 
feels  nothing,  knows  nothing  but  lawless  passion,  and  clamors 
with  Mephistopheles  for  immediate  possession.  Mephistopheles 
promises  him  all  in  the  end,  and  meantime  a  visit  to  her  room. 
There  he  shall  be  by  himself,  and  revel  in  dreams  of  pleasures  yet 
to  come.  But  how  these  Satanic  words  fail  of  fulfillment !  What 
a  change  comes  over  the  soul  of  Faust,  when  he  treads  the  pre- 
cincts of  virtue,  and  breathes  the  atmosphere  of  contented  inno- 
cence !  Like  the  mild  shining  of  the  sun  and  the  soft  sereneness 
of  the  air  after  a  furious  storm,  better  thoughts  and  feelings  steal 
in  upon  him  and  hush  to  stillness  the  mad  tumult  of  desire.  As 
he  feels  the  spirit  of  order  and  purity  that  reigns  in  the  place,  he 
is  humbled  to  self-loathing,  to  think  what  a  base  impulse  brought 
him  here.  And  if  she  were  to  enter  now,  how  would  he  rue  his 
wanton  sacrilege,  how  he  should  sink  at  her  feet,  dissolved  in 
shame  !  He  rushes  out,  with  the  purpose  never  to  return. 

We  leave  several  passages  which  unfold,  in  successive  meetings, 
the  mutual  love  of  Faust  and  Margaret,  and  come  to  the  scene  of 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  167 

the  Wood  and  Cavern,  and  the  next  following  dialogue  of  Faust 
and  Mephistopheles.  Faust  has  now  met  Margaret  again  and 
again,  and  is  all  conscious  of  the  unspeakable  worth  of  her  good- 
ness, of  the  preciousness  of  a  true  woman's  love ;  he  has  felt  in 
his  own  breast  the  power  of  love,  but  passion  is  stronger  there  ; 
and  in  his  dread  of  wrong-doing,  so  close  at  hand,  and  the  fright- 
ful evil  it  will  work,  he  flees  the  presence  of  the  loved  one ;  he 
hastens  away  from  the  dwellings  of  men  to  the  still  and  lonely 
woods.  But  the  solitude  of  nature  is  no  moral  security  for  his 
heart,  so  ill  at  ease,  and  not  settled  in  truth ;  and  even  in  the  deep 
forest,  in  the  dark  cavern,  he  encounters  the  tempter  face  to  face, 
and  is  tempted  beyond  his  strength.  The  adversary  plies  him 
first  with  mocking  laugh  and  sneer.  He  derides  Faust's  comfort- 
less, owl-like  moping  in  clefts  and  caverns,  his  lapping  nourish- 
ment, like  a  toad,  from  oozy  moss  and  dripping  stones.  Precious 
communion  with  nature  !  A  rare  pastime !  There  must  be  some- 
thing of  "  the  learned  Doctor  still  sticking  in  his  bones  !  "  Faust 
urges  what  new  life-power  he  gains  by  roaming  thus  among  the 
scenes  of  nature.  With  yet  sharper  sneers  Mephistopheles  ridi- 
cules all  Faust's  transports  about  nature,  all  such  swelling  of  a 
poor  human  soul  to  take  in  the  six  days'  work  of  creation ;  how 
charmingly  consistent  they  are  with  a  lover's  raptures,  how  much 
better  after  all  the  real  delights  that  may  be  his  than  such  ideal 
vaporing.  He  then  makes  Faust  feel  the  forlorn  condition  of 
Margaret  in  his  absence,  how  she  sits  lonely  and  despairing,  his 
image  never  out  of  her  mind.  Instead  of  lording  it  here  over 
the  woods,  far  better  that  he  should  hasten  to  her  comfort,  and 
reward  her  for  her  love.  Faust  feels  the  tempter's  words,  and 
bids  him  begone,  nor  dare  name  her  or  bring  her  image  to  his 
thoughts.  But  Mephistopheles  insists  that  something  must  be 
done  ;  that  she  thinks  he  has  deserted  her  and  gone  forever.  The 
thought  of  desertion  sets  back  upon  Faust  the  whole  tide  of  his 
passion.  He  can  never  forget,  he  will  never  forget  her.  But 
then  the  peril  to  her  by  his  return,  the  ruin  so  imminent !  No  joy 
could  he  have  in  her  love  if  he  is  to  undermine  her  peace.  And 
yet  she  thinks  him  false,  is  disconsolate  without  him ;  besides,  is 
not  his  own  love  a  genuine,  a  natural  one  ?  He  must,  he  will  go 
back,  whatever  it  may  cost  either  her  or  himself.  And  so  passion 
triumphs  over  his  better  nature. 

After  Margaret's  fall,  Faust  flees,  driven  by  the  tortures  of 
remorse.     But  he  comes  back  to  perpetrate  an  act,  which  he  had 


168  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

never  foreseen  in  all  his  dread  anticipations  of  Margaret's  ruin. 
Her  brother  had  meantime  come  back  from  the  wars,  a  soldier  of 
rough  manners,  but  of  brave  heart,  who  had  tenderly  loved  his 
sister,  and  felt  her  disgrace  like  a  stab  in  the  heart.  He  meets 
Faust  and  forces  him  to  a  duel,  and  is  himself  slain.  Faust  must 
now  flee  for  his  personal  safety,  and  leave  Margaret  again,  and  to 
aggravated  wretchedness.  The  interval  of  flight  the  poet  fills  up 
with  the  scene  of  The  Walpurgis  Night,  in  which  he  represents 
the  Witches'  Sabbath  on  the  Brocken  in  all  the  fullness  of  the 
superstitious  ideas  which  prevailed  in  the  age  of  Faust.  Many 
parts  of  the  scene  are  difficult  to  understand,  and  the  whole  is 
revolting  to  study,  but  it  seems  to  be  designed  to  show  how  the 
tempter  strove,  though  in  vain,  to  sink  Faust  in  licentious  indul- 
gence, and  so  drown  his  anguish,  as  well  as  his  memory  of  Mar- 
garet ;  to  show  how  the  excitements  of  a  sensual  life  could  no 
longer  attract  him  after  his  experience  of  Margaret's  love ;  and 
how  in  that  love,  in  spite  of  all  his  guilt,  he  had  found  a  power 
that  was  to  lift  him  out  of  the  low  career  into  which  he  had  madly 
plunged.  From  all  the  foul  orgies  of  the  witch-night  on  the 
Brocken,  his  thoughts  must  needs  go  back  to  the  forsaken,  un- 
happy Margaret.  As  he  is  whirling  in  the  mazes  of  the  dance, 
he  sees  in  the  distance  a  beautiful  girl,  of  ghastly  pale  face,  who 
seems  to  be  dragging  herself  towards  him,  like  one  with  shackled 

feet :  — 

"  It  cannot,  cannot  be,  and  yet 
She  minds  me  of  sweet  Margaret." 

Mephistopheles  tries  to  laugh  him  out  of  the  idea ;  it  is  only  a 
magic  shape,  no  real  thing.  But  Faust  is  riveted  to  the  form,  and 
presently  he  sees,  strangely  adorning  that  lovely  neck,  a  single 
red  cord,  no  thicker  than  a  knife-blade ;  such  are  the  fancies  that 
trouble  that  guilty  soul ;  such  are  his  presentiments  of  the  evils 
so  soon  to  come. 

From  this  frightful  dreamland  the  poet  brings  us  down  to 
earth  again,  and  to  a  scene  in  prose,  —  the  only  prose  scene  in  the 
poem,  —  charged  with  awful  realities.  We  find  Faust  and  Me- 
phistopheles, of  a  gloomy  day,  on  an  open  plain.  Faust  has  just 
learned  all  that  has  befallen  Margaret ;  a  crazed  wanderer,  and 
now  in  prison,  awaiting  a  criminal's  doom.  He  curses  Mephis- 
topheles, that  he  has  kept  all  this  from  him,  all  the  while  lulling 
him  with  vapid  dissipations,  hiding  her  wretchedness  and  leaving 
her  to  perish  without  help.  He  is  conscious,  as  never  before,  of 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  169 

the  destructive  power  of  evil,  and  bewails  his  fate,  that  has  fas- 
tened him  to  such  fellowship  of  sin,  and  mischief,  and  shame.  He 
hastens  away,  —  Mephistopheles  compelled  to  follow  and  aid,  —  to 
the  rescue  of  Margaret.  And  here  we  come  to  the  last  scene  of 
the  First  Part,  —  the  prison  scene,  —  the  pathos  of  which  who  can 
describe  ?  Here  Faust  sees  Margaret  once  more,  and  for  the  last 
time ;  but  how  changed  !  and  yet  the  same  !  Crouching  on  her 
bed  of  straw  in  the  corner,  wild  of  look,  her  reason  wandering, 
"  like  sweet  bells  jangled,"  uttering  wild  snatches  of  song  con- 
fusedly mixed  with  thoughts  of  her  youth  and  beauty,  and  dim 
memories  of  her  love  and  her  guilt,  of  her  child  and  her  mother, 
whose  death  she  raves  through  with  horrible  distinctness  of  detail ; 
but  shining  bright  through  all  the  confusion,  her  sweetness  of 
nature,  her  love  for  Faust,  and  above  all,  with  all  her  crushing 
sense  of  shame,  her  faith  in  the  mercy  of  a  forgiving  God.  At 
first,  she  knows  not  Faust  at  all,  she  thinks  it  is  the  jailer,  and 
complains  that  he  has  come  too  soon  ;  then  as  Faust  falls  by  her 
side  in  his  distress,  she  gladly  thinks  that  it  is  some  one  who  will 
kneel  with  her  in  prayer.  At  last  she  hears  his  own  voice,  and 
rushes  to  embrace  him,  and  in  a  brief,  lucid  interval,  lives  over 
her  love  again,  in  the  sudden  joy  of  his  presence.  But  when  she 
dimly  discovers  that  he  will  rescue  her,  she  cannot  hear  of  it. 
She  will  go  out  with  him,  if  the  grave  is  there,  with  him  to  the 
eternal  resting-place,  but  not  a  step  other  than  that.  Then  her 
reason  wanders  into  the  wildest,  saddest  confusion  of  thoughts  and 
memories,  to  come  back  in  a  brief  last  moment,  at  the  sudden 
appearance  of  Mephistopheles,  in  the  utterance  of  her  pious  sub- 
mission to  the  judgment  of  God,  and  of  her  trembling  solicitude 
for  her  lover.  Mephistopheles  hurries  away  Faust,  with  the  omi- 
nous words,  "  Come  thou  to  me  !  "  But  that  last  voice  of  this 
First  Part,  —  the  voice  of  love  "  from  within,"  calling  after  Faust, 
and  dying  away,  "  Henry !  Henry  !  "  —  is  it  a  plaintive  prophecy, 
by  and  by  to  be  fulfilled  ? 

We  come  to  the  exposition  of  the  Second  Part  of  this  poem, 
rather  from  a  feeling  of  necessity,  than  from  an  admiration  for  its 
contents.  Without  a  survey  of  it,  our  task  would  be  unfinished, 
and  the  view  of  Faust's  career  incomplete.  But  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  Second  Part  is  far  inferior  to  the  First  in  concep- 
tion and  in  execution,  and  fails  to  take  a  strong  hold  of  either  the 
understanding  or  the  heart  of  the  reader.  It  has,  indeed,  an 
affluence  of  literary  and  poetic  material,  for  Goethe  has  enriched 


170  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

it  from  the  abundant  stores  of  his  various  and  lifelong  studies, 
and  adorned  it  with  all  the  refinement  of  his  culture.  But  while 
there  is  an  onward  and  upward  progress  in  the  career  of  Faust 
even  to  the  consummation,  there  is  a  marked  falling  off  in  tragic 
and  in  moral  interest,  and  a  decline  also  in  the  poetic,  not  so  much 
in  respect  to  fullness  of  imagery,  but,  as  it  seems  to  us,  in  the 
quality  of  the  poetry.  You  miss  that  genial  union  of  thinking  and 
imagining  which  belongs  to  genuine  poetry,  where  the  thought  is 
born  in  the  soul  together  with  the  fancy,  and  comes  forth  into  a 
perfect  oneness  of  image.  You  seem  here  to  see  the  two  pro- 
cesses at  first  apart,  the  thoughts  forming  themselves  in  the  mind, 
and  then  the  imagination  clothing  them  in  poetic  forms.  Hence, 
with  all  the  poetic  that  is  here,  there  is  so  much  that  is  unpoetical. 
You  are  indeed  in  a  poetical  world,  a  world  of  the  imagination  ; 
all  is  unreal,  dreamlike ;  but  it  is  ungenial,  it  does  not  awaken 
emotion  ;  you  do  not  so  much  admire  as  wonder ;  you  are  curious, 
indeed,  with  wonder  what  all  this  is,  where  you  are,  and  why  you 
are  here  at  all.  You  are  traversing  a  vast  realm  of  allegory, 
where  ever  flit  about  you  mystic  figures  of  thinnest  aerial  texture, 
of  all  times  and  regions,  indeed  all  forms  of  being ;  shades  from 
Hades,  creatures  of  mythology,  Helen  and  Paris  leading  up  all 
classic  antiquity,  and  all  the  classic  myths  following  in  their  train ; 
all  engaged  with  sprightliest  activity  in  many  and  complex  per- 
formances, the  full  import  of  which  you  may  not  quite  clearly  dis- 
cover till  after  many  close  observations,  and  perhaps  not  even 
then.  These  allegorical  figures  awaken  no  commanding  interest ; 
you  do  not  feel  drawn  to  them,  nor  do  you  long  to  recall  them 
when  they  are  gone,  or  keep  them  with  you  in  delighted  memory  ; 
they  are  very  brilliant,  and  sometimes  they  troop  before  you  in 
gorgeous  splendor ;  but  they  have  more  light  than  warmth,  you 
feel  them  to  be  cold  and  frosty,  with  all  their  glittering  bright- 
ness. It  is  also  fatal  to  the  popularity  of  the  allegorical  poetry  in 
this  part  of  "  Faust,"  that  what  it  represents  does  not  address  the 
sympathies  of  the  mass  of  mankind.  The  "  Faerie  Queen  "  and 
the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  draw  the  sources  of  their  universal  and 
enduring  interest  from  truths  which  are  familiar  to  all  human 
experience.  We  love  to  journey  with  Christian,  and  to  wander 
with  the  Lady  Una  and  the  Red  Cross  Knight,  because  we  have 
so  much  in  common  with  them  as  human  beings ;  we  fight  with 
them  in  their  battles,  we  suffer  their  defeats,  and  exult  in  their 
victories.  But  here  the  allegory  symbolizes  the  fortunes  of  art, 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  171 

literature,  science,  all  learning,  ancient  and  modern  ;  and  these, 
too,  in  their  very  culminations,  as  they  are  reached  in  apprehen- 
sion and  sympathy  only  by  men  of  the  greatest  refinement  and 
cultivation.  Not  many  readers  can  behold  and  enjoy  the  glorious 
forms  of  classic  letters  and  art  in  the  imposing  assemblage  of 
allegorical  figures  in  the  Classical  Walpurgis  Night ;  and  it  is 
probably  the  rare  lot  of  only  the  choice  and  master-spirits  of  the 
race  to  sympathize  with  the  exalted  Faust  in  his  intuitions  of  ideal 
beauty  in  the  sight  of  the  conjured  Helen  of  Troy. 

For  reasons  such  as  these,  this  Second  Part  of  Goethe's  great 
poem  has  by  many  been  summarily  condemned  to  the  regions  of 
the  obscure  and  unintelligible  ;  but  the  evidence  is  inadequate 
to  such  a  sentence.  There  are  doubtless  some  parts  which  have 
never  been  satisfactorily  explained ;  but  the  labyrinth  is  not  so 
intricate  and  dark  but  that  by  some  friendly  thread  of  guidance  x 
we  can  trace  the  course  of  Faust  through  the  windings  of  his  peril- 
ous way,  and  come  out  with  him  again  into  light  and  freedom. 

Let  us  now  go  through  with  this  Second  Part,  dwelling  only 
upon  what  is  essential  to  a  view  of  Faust's  ever  struggling  but  up- 
ward career.  We  can  take  with  us,  as  a  guide,  the  significant  re- 
mark of  Goethe  himself,  published  in  an  announcement  of  the 
"  Helena,"  in  his  "  Kunst  und  Alterthum,"  "  that  the  composition 
of  a  Second  Part  must  necessarily  conduct  a  man  of  Faust's 
nature  into  higher  regions,  under  worthier  circumstances."  This 
emerging  into  higher  regions  the  poet  represents  in  his  best  man- 
ner, at  the  very  opening  of  the  first  scene.  Faust  has  resorted 
to  again  meditative  communion  with  nature,  and  this  time  has  de- 
rived the  utmost  good  that  this  source  of  healing  can  yield.  The 
airy  elves  that  breathe  sweetest  music  over  his  unquiet  slumbers, 
at  least  soothe  his  troubled  soul ;  and  he  awakes  to  greet  with  a 
fresh  vigor  and  courage  the  coming  of  a  new  day,  and  to  struggle, 
though  with  calmer  endeavor,  in  paths  of  better  activity.  Me- 
phistopheles  still  goes  with  him,  such  were  the  terms  of  both  the 
contract  and  the  Prologue  ;  and,  according  to  his  promise,  is  now  to 
conduct  Faust  to  "  the  great  world  "  of  human  life.  So  Faust  is 
now  brought  to  an  imperial  court ;  even  as  Goethe  himself  became 

1  We  have  been  indebted  for  such  guidance,  in  some  parts  of  the  poem,  to 
Dr.  Karl  Kostlin's  book,  entitled  Goethe's  Faust,  Seine  Kritiker  und  Ausleger, 
Tubingen,  1860.  Eckermann  has  also  preserved  for  us,  in  his  Conversations 
with  Goethe,  much  valuable  exposition,  from  the  poet's  own  lips,  of  some  pas- 
sages in  the  Second  Part. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

the  central  personage  at  the  small  but  brilliant  court  of  Weiinar. 
It  is  a  time  most  propitious  for  able  and  aspiring  men ;  for  the 
affairs  of  the  realm  are  in  the  utmost  disorder,  and  the  emperor, 
a  weak  sovereign,  and  fond  of  pleasure,  will  welcome  aid  from  any 
quarter.  What  position  of  influence  Faust  himself  reaches  we 
are  not  informed ;  but  Mephistopheles  becomes  court-jester,  and 
very  soon  jests  with  the  emperor  and  all  his  subjects  in  a  very 
reckless  fashion.  A  grand  council  assembles ;  and  the  emperor, 
more  impatient  of  business  than  usual,  for  it  is  now  carnival-time, 
is  vexed  beyond  measure  with  the  complaints  that  come  in  from 
all  departments  of  the  disordered  empire.  The  bottom-line  of  all 
the  evils  from  which  the  state  is  suffering  seems  to  be  the  extraor- 
dinary scarcity  of  money.  There  is  absolutely  none  in  the  em- 
peror's coffers,  next  to  none  anywhere,  the  revenues  are  all 
clutched  by  the  Jews  before  they  come  in  ;  all  property  is  mort- 
gaged to  the  top,  all  trade  is  dead-locked,  and  bread  comes  on  to 
the  table  eaten  in  advance  ;  in  short,  the  whole  empire  is  on  the 
brink  of  ruin.  In  this  exigency,  Faust  seems  to  think  himself 
allowed  to  do  what  other  men  have  done  of  more  experience  in 
statecraft ;  he  is  drawn  by  Mephistopheles  into  quite  hollow  ex- 
pedients for  a  supply  of  money  ;  apparently  forgetting  what  once 
he  told  Mephistopheles,  that  the  devil's  gold,  like  mercury,  always 
slides  away  from  the  hand.  Mephistopheles  unfolds  to  the  em- 
peror a  plan  for  a  new  kind  of  currency,  far  more  convenient  than 
specie,  and  just  as  good  when  you  know  where  the  specie  is,  and 
are  willing  to  wait  till  you  get  it  in  hand.  He  dilates  upon  the 
vast  subterranean  treasures  in  the  realm,  which,  of  course,  belong 
to  the  emperor,  as  well  as  the  brains  and  hands  which  are  needed 
to  get  them.  He  pictures  to  his  fancy  the  gold  and  the  jewels 
that,  ever  since  the  days  of  the  mighty  Romans,  successive  genera- 
tions have,  in  times  of  trouble,  buried  underground.  What  vaults 
and  cellars  were  waiting  to  be  blown  up,  and  reveal  their  riches 
of  gold,  and  silver  plate,  and  coined  money !  How  often  has  mere 
chance  turned  up  to  the  peasant  a  pot  of  gold,  as  he  plowed  the 
soil !  Now  let  all  these  treasures  be  deliberately  dug  for  and 
brought  to  light  and  use.  The  emperor  is  at  first  incredulous, 
but  finally  is  full  of  faith  in  the  new  scheme.  Here  is  certainly  a 
prospect  of  relief ;  the  scheme  shall  be  tried  ;  but,  meantime,  let 
the  trumpet  sound,  and  all  celebrate  the  waiting  joys  of  carnival. 
As  if  in  preparation  for  the  golden  days  that  are  coming,  the 
emperor  and  court  now  take  part  in  a  superbly  appointed  masquer- 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  173 

ade,  in  which  Riches  plays  a  prominent  part.  Without  attempting 
to  describe  this  grand  court-show,  we  need  only  mention  that  the 
chief  personages  are  Plutus,  the  god  of  riches,  who  is  represented 
by  Faust,  and  Pan,  the  god  of  universal  nature,  who  is  repre- 
sented by  the  emperor.  Plutus  appears  in  a  chariot  drawn 
through  the  air  by  four  dragons ;  he  scatters,  as  he  passes  along, 
bright  gifts  upon  the  crowd  below,  who  eagerly  snatch  them  as 
they  fall.  At  length  the  chariot  descends,  and  a  huge  chest,  filled 
to  the  brim  with  golden  stores,  is  set  upon  the  ground ;  and  as  the 
emperor  Pan  draws  nigh,  encircled  by  a  chorus  of  nymphs,  a 
deputation  of  gnomes  bear  the  chest,  and  with  low  obeisance  lay 
it  at  his  feet.  And  so  the  emperor  is  symbolically  declared  lord 
of  the  treasures  hidden  in  the  earth.  A  scene  laid  upon  the  fol- 
lowing day,  and  appropriately  called  the  Pleasure-Garden,  pic- 
tures the  carrying  out  of  the  scheme  of  Mephistopheles,  and  its 
immediate  result  in  a  sudden  plethora  of  the  money  market.  It 
appears  that  in  a  lucky  interval  in  the  masquerade,  Mephistopheles 
had  contrived  to  secure  a  few  pen-strokes  of  the  great  Pan's  hand 
to  a  certain  bit  of  otherwise  insignificant  paper.  These  had  been 
multiplied,  by  clever  hands,  a  thousand  fold,  signature  and  all,  and 
the  blanks  filled  out ;  and  so  had  gone  forth,  to  the  unspeakable 
relief  of  a  distressed  people,  an  abundant  issue  of  Imperial  Treas- 
ury notes,  of  all  convenient  denominations  ;  the  notes  to  be  taken 
up  without  delay  when  certain  untold  treasures  buried  in  the 
emperor's  lands  were  raised  up  and  put  into  the  imperial  vaults  ; 
and  these,  moreover,  were  to  be  raised  up  immediately.  Great 
were  the  mutual  congratulations  of  emperor  and  heads  of  depart- 
ments, and  courtiers  and  common  people,  on  that  same  Pleasure- 
Garden  occasion.  The  Commander-in-Chief  announces  that  the 
pay  is  settled  in  advance,  and  the  army  was  never  in  such  a  loyal 
mood.  The  steward  of  the  imperial  household  is  enraptured  to 
think  that  bill  after  bill  has  been  paid,  and  that  the  claws  of  the 
monster  usury  are  dulled.  The  lord-treasurer  brings  word  that  it 
is  gala-day  on  'Change,  and  all  through  the  town  ;  that  the  people 
have  plenty  of  money,  and  without  being  plagued  with  big  money- 
bags ;  and  that  one  half  of  the  world  seems  to  think  of  nothing 
but  eating,  while  the  other  half  is  strutting  about  in  brand-new 
clothes.  The  emperor  is  strangely  perplexed  at  these  tidings.  At 
first  he  is  in  a  rage.  He  remembers  that  he  signed  one  piece  of 
paper  last  night,  but  these  thousands  he  hears  of  must  be  forger- 
ies. But  when  the  treasurer  explains  it  all,  and  when  he  learns 


174  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

how  much  good  has  been  done,  his  emotion  subsides  through  won- 
der into  a  happy  content.  "  And  all  this,"  he  exclaims,  "  passes 
with  my  people  for  gold  ?  Suffices  with  the  army  and  court  for 
full  pay  ?  Very  well ;  surprised  as  I  am,  I  must  let  it  pass." 
The  poet  leaves  the  reader  to  imagine  the  final  results  of  this 
stroke  of  Mephistophelian  finance ;  and  if  he  be  charged  with 
lightness  in  introducing  such  an  episode  into  his  great  theme,  it 
may  be  said  in  defense  that  earnestness  and  humor  are  very  near 
together  in  human  nature  and  in  human  life,  and,  moreover,  that 
wise  men,  no  less  than  arrant  knaves,  have  blown  similar  financial 
bubbles  in  the  real  world.  We  have  no  theory  to  propose  touch- 
ing the  meaning  of  this  scene  at  the  imperial  court ;  and  we  have 
been  somewhat  perplexed  by  the  ingenious  but  conflicting  theories 
of  learned  commentators  ;  but  we  may  readily  infer  that  Faust 
must  have  soon  discovered  how  hollow  are  often  the  ways  of  the 
great  world,  how  unsatisfying  the  life  of  courtiers,  and  how  slip- 
pery and  perilous  the  paths  trodden  by  statesmen  and  financiers. 

But  what  has  been  now  described  marks  only  the  introduction 
and  the  transition  to  Faust's  main  career  at  the  imperial  court. 
We  have  to  confess,  however,  that  it  is  very  difficult  at  first  to 
know  for  certain  what  was  really  going  on  in  Faust's  own  soul, 
in  his  own  inner  life,  for  some  time  to  come,  from  the  two  acts 
which  now  follow.  Gay  and  gorgeous  as  are  all  the  scenes,  they 
are  laid  in  far-off  dream-regions  of  allegory;  it  is  all  phantom- 
land,  in  figures,  movement,  all  the  shadowy  goings-on,  with  Faust 
himself  seemingly  the  only  veritable  human  element,  and  not  a 
word  from  any  creature  else,  that  seems  to  come  out  of  real 
human  lips.  But  when  we  get  beyond  wonder,  in  all  this  mystical 
world,  and  discern  some  significance  in  all  these  manifold  forms  of 
brightness  that  flit  in  from  all  around,  and  unite  in  such  harmony, 
the  Grecian  Helen  rediviva,  brightest  of  all,  courted  and  won  by 
the  modern  Faust,  —  we  are  sure  that  those  "  higher  regions " 
which  the  poet  so  dimly  hinted  at  are  the  regions  of  ideal  beauty, 
and  that  thither  Faust  has  now  turned  the  strivings  of  his  rest- 
less soul ;  to  the  love  and  pursuit  of  the  beautiful,  which  he  will 
apprehend,  and  possess,  and  enjoy  in  all  elegant  letters  and  art, 
and,  most  of  all,  in  poetry.  The  love  of  beauty  has  been  always 
a  strong  element  in  his  being.  Beauty  he  has  loved  in  nature, 
for  whom  he  has  always  had  a  true  lover's  devotion ;  beauty  in 
woman,  in  form  and  in  character,  though  there  his  love  was  mixed 
with  passion,  and  led  to  sin  and  sorrow.  Now  ideal  beauty  he 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  175 

will  seek  and  apprehend,  and  make  a  real  possession,  in  all  purely 
intellectual  spheres,  where  it  may  be  embodied  in  lasting  forms. 
For  this  new  career  he  has  at  court,  where  all  else  is  so  unpromis- 
ing, ample  and  alluring  openings ;  even  as  it  was  with  Goethe 
himself  in  his  court-life  at  Weimar.  The  emperor,  with  all  his 
weaknesses,  will  be  a  patron  of  art ;  he  is  not  without  culture 
himself,  and  in  his  coronation  visit  to  Italy  caught  some  glimpses 
of  the  wonders  of  beauty  in  the  ancient  world.  It  is  under  such 
fortunate  circumstances,  that  in  these  scenes,  so  brilliant,  so  elab- 
orate, and  withal  so  very  fantastic,  Goethe  represents  the  exalted, 
but  at  last  unsatisfying  experiences  of  Faust  in  a  life  of  the 
widest  and  truest  literary  and  poetic  culture,  or,  as  Goethe  and 
the  Germans  are  fond  of  calling  it,  of  highest  aesthetic  culture  as 
an  artist.  In  the  portraiture  of  such  lofty  experiences  as  these,  it 
were  natural  in  any  modern  fiction,  whether  in  prose  or  in  poetry, 
that  the  author  should  educate  his  hero  not  only  by  solitary  study 
at  home,  but  especially  by  residence  in  the  ever-enchanted  lands 
of  classic  literature  and  art ;  where,  on  the  sacred  soil  once  trod- 
den by  the  long  departed  great,  and  yet  bearing  everywhere  the 
precious  weight  of  the  monuments  of  their  genius,  he  should 
commune  with  the  spirit  of  the  past  and  ascend  to  the  very  sources 
of  all  which  makes  life  ideal.  But  for  a  hero  like  Faust,  who 
belongs  to  the  opening  of  modern  civilization,  when  the  reviving 
glories  of  classical  learning  were  just  reddening  the  horizon,  and 
whose  image,  from  such  a  time,  has  on  us  a  kind  of  glamour  of 
sorcery,  with  Goethe,  too,  for  the  poet,  who  heralded  and  ushered 
in  a  later  new  era  of  literature  and  art,  a  more  striking,  —  if  we 
may  so  say,  —  a  more  sensuous  proceeding  was  no  less  natural. 
So  Goethe,  in  these  scenes,  seizes  and  moulds  to  his  larger  uses 
those  portions  of  the  tradition  in  which  Faust  plays  his  magic 
part  before  Maximilian,  and,  among  other  necromantic  achieve- 
ments, conjures  up  the  beautiful  Helen,  and  woos  and  wins  her  for 
his  own.  It  lies  outside  our  present  purpose,  and  we  have  neither 
the  ability  nor  the  inclination  for  the  task,  to  attempt  a  detailed 
unfolding  of  these  complex  parts  of  the  poem.  We  shall  touch 
them  in  the  briefest  manner,  venturing  hints,  as  we  pass,  at  the 
probable  indications  they  give  us  of  the  progress  of  Faust  in  this 
exalted  region  of  his  new  endeavors.  The  emperor  wills  that 
Faust  summon  up  the  Grecian  Helen ;  in  her  must  be  seen,  in 
.distinct  form,  the  ideal  of  beauty.  The  wondrous  task  is  achieved, 
but  with  small  aid  of  Mephistopheles.  Beauty,  he  confesses,  lies 


170  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

beyond  his  realm  ;  those  long  vanished  heathen  heroines  are  safe 
away  in  a  select  place  of  their  own ;  but  still  there  are  means 
within  Faust's  own  reach.  Faust  must  first  penetrate  to  the 
abodes  of  "The  Mothers  "  of  all,  —  mysterious  divinities,  dwell- 
ing in  deep,  untrodden  solitudes,  —  with  whom  are  the  archetypes 
of  all  things,  and  so  the  original  form  of  beauty;  from  whom 
they  all  proceed,  to  whom  they  return,  from  whom  and  by  whom 
alone  they  can  come  back  to  the  light  of  day.  So  does  the  poet 
seem  to  represent,  by  an  image  drawn  from  classic  sources,1  the 
idea  of  beauty  as  intuitive,  resting  in  the  inmost  nature  of  man. 
For  Faust  himself  the  apparition  of  Helen  is  far  more  than  an 
emperor's  holiday  show ;  she  rises  to  his  awakened  sensibility,  like 
a  golden  exhalation,  in  all  her  ineffable  loveliness  ;  there  suddenly 
breaks  into  his  spiritual  atmosphere  the  vision  of  the  beautiful, 
out  of  that  buried  but  ever-living  world  of  ancient  art,  hitherto  so 
strange  to  him,  and  strange  no  less  to  all  modern  life,  before  the 
new  birth  of  classic  antiquity.  And,  as  in  the  experience  of  so 
many  men  of  fine  spiritual  nature,  —  of  Goethe  himself,  in  his 
Roman  life,  —  he  is  overpowered  by  the  vision  ;  he  is  transported 
by  that  glorious  form,  so/  suddenly  revealed  for  an  instant's  gaze ; 
and  he  wanders  half  beside  himself,  haunted  by  the  image,  insen- 
sible to  all  else,  and  sighing  for  a  prolonged  and  perfect  sight  to 
follow  that  ravishing  glimpse.  This  longing  must  be  stilled,  if 
not  satisfied.  Faust  must  find  his  way  to  the  world  of  classic 
beauty,  the  ideal  Hellas,  for  there,  if  anywhere,  is  the  vanished 
Helen.  But  a  guide  is  needed  ;  and  he  is  furnished  by  an  inven- 
tion of  the  poet,  which  is  one  of  the  strangest  of  the  many  strange 
phantasms  of  this  part  of  his  work.  We  are  suddenly  back  in 
Faust's  study,  where  our  old  friend  Wagner  is  installed,  and  has 
been  all  these  years,  now  more  learned  than  ever,  and  a  great  al- 
chymist.  He  has  long  been  busy  in  his  laboratory,  trying  to  dis- 
cover the  principle  of  life,  and  has  just  succeeded  to  a  charm ;  and 
now  out  of  one  of  his  mysterious  bottles  springs  forth  a  little  intel- 
lectual creature,  a  tremulous,  ethereal  being,  pure  intelligence,  — 
Homunculus  by  name,  —  and  he  is  to  be  Faust's  guide.  Under 

1  Goethe  says  himself  in  Eckermann's  Conversations,  that  he  "  found  in 
Plutarch  that  in  ancient  Greece  the  '  Mothers  '  were  spoken  of  as  divinities  ; 
and  that  all  the  rest  was  his  own  invention."  The  passage  the  poet  referred 
to  is  probably  the  one  in  Plutarch's  Marcellus,  c.  20.  Diintzer  also  quotes  Plu- 
tarch, De  df.fectu  oraculorum,  c.  22,  and  also  Diodorus  Siculus,  iv.  80.  Kostlin 
cites  also  Plato,  Phcedrus,  c.  27. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  177 

such  questionable  guidance,  —  whether  Homunculus  be  the  spirit 
of  learning,  of  study,  or  the  personification  of  Faust's  own  ideal 
strivings,  we  know  not,  —  Faust  is  brought  to  the  classic  Hellas, 
and  sees  revealed  to  his  gaze  all  her  ever-living  forms  of  beauty 
and  grandeur.  Her  gods  and  goddesses  all  pass  before  his 
delighted  vision,  her  heroic  men  and  her  fair  women,  all  the 
bright  forms  of  her  mythology,  the  beings  that  people  the  sea 
and  the  air,  denizens  of  wood,  valley,  fountain,  and  river,  —  all 
are  to  him  real  presences,  as  if  they  had  imperishably  survived 
the  historical  passing  away  of  the  ancient  world.  But  for  our- 
selves, we  have  been  unable  to  sympathize  with  the  enthusiastic 
praise  bestowed  by  some  of  Goethe's  admiring  critics  upon  this 
part  of  the  poem ;  indeed,  we  have  had  to  wonder  at  Faust's 
words  of  passionate  admiration  at  the  many  marvels  that  were 
thronging  around  him.  The  famous  scene  of  the  Classic  Carni- 
val is  certainly  affluent  in  its  stores  of  learning,  in  some  passages 
most  elaborately  poetic,  and  everywhere  enlivened  with  most 
genial  humor  ;  but  the  impression  it  makes  is  not  noble,  it  stirs 
no  grand  emotions  ;  it  is  a  ghostly,  nay,  a  ghastly,  company  you 
are  in  all  the  while ;  surely  a  winter  at  Rome,  a  month  of  study 
in  the  gallery  of  the  Vatican  and  of  the  Capitol,  a  single  reading 
of  the  Iliad,  were  better  than  a  dozen  such  carnivals,  for  a  repro- 
duction of  the  genius  of  ancient  life  and  art. 

But  this  Scene  of  the  "  Classic  Carnival "  is  only  subsidiary  to 
the  Act  of  the  "  Helena,"  Faust's  wandering  amidst  the  won- 
ders of  Hellas  to  the  discovery  and  possession  of  Helen  herself, 
his  upward  progress  in  aesthetic  culture  to  heights  of  attainment 
which  have  been  reached  only  by  the  few  Goethes  of  modern 
times.  We  presume  not  to  dwell  upon  the  great  merits  or  the 
equally  great  defects  of  this  part 1  of  the  poem  ;  on  the  one  hand, 
the  poet's  masterly  treatment,  in  diction  and  in  numbers,  of  the 
simplicity  and  dignity,  and  the  stately  inarch  of  the  classic  Greek 
muse,  and  of  the  various  grace  and  pomp  and  freer  movement  of 
the  modern  Romantic  :  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  perplexed 
mixture  of  the  most  incongruous  elements,  the  real  and  the  imagi- 
nary, history  and  allegory,  which  gives  a  radically  artificial  char- 

1  Carlyle  wrote  many  years  ago  one  of  his  most  characteristic  articles  on  the 
Helena,  which  has  been  republished  in  his  Miscellanies.  If  our  readers  are 
not  already  familiar  with  it,  and  desire  to  pursue  this  subject  further,  they  will 
find  in  that  article  a  very  full  and  admirable  exposition  of  this  act  of  the 
poem. 


178  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

acter  to  the  total  conception.  It  belongs  to  our  plan  only  to  indi- 
cate its  chief  features  and  their  probable  bearings  upon  this  stage 
of  Faust's  career,  and  the  mutual  connections,  which  it  seems 
meant  to  illustrate,  of  ancient  and  of  modern  culture. 

Like  Orpheus  and  ^Eneas,  Faust  makes  the  descent  to  Hades  ; 
and,  more  successful  than  the  Thracian  lover,  secures  the  return 
of  1  lelen  to  the  upper  air.  The  Spartan  queen  appears,  on  her 
return  from  Troy,  before  the  palace  of  King  Menelaus  ;  but  though 
she  sees  "  Tyndarus'  high  house  "  standing  there  as  erst  in  all  its 
grandeur,  she  is  not  destined  to  reenter  as  its  queenly  mistress. 
New  fortunes  await  her,  such  as  Homer  never  dreamed  of.  A  new 
abduction  is  at  hand.  She  must  escape  the  wrath  of  her  injured 
lord,  and  be  borne  for  refuge  to  a  new  world,  which  is  to  be  made 
bright  by  her  beauty.  Accordingly,  with  a  truly  romantic  inde- 
pendence of  the  unities,  the  poet  transports  her  away  from  Sparta, 
over  sea  and  land,  and  lets  her  gently  alight,  herself  and  choms 
sadly  bewildered,  amidst  worn,  gray  walls,  in  the  court  of  a  me- 
diseval  castle,  where  the  noble  Faust,  begirt  with  pages  and 
esquires,  stands  ready  to  greet  her,  and  bid  her  knightly  welcome 
to  his  halls.  With  all  homage  of  admiration  is  thus  the  beautiful 
spirit  of  ancient  art  first  greeted  in  the  modern  world ;  and  the 
gallant  wooing  in  these  castle  halls,  not  without  happiest  answer- 
ing tokens,  is  most  auspicious  for  Faust's  onward  progress,  and  for 
the  fortunes  of  the  new  culture  which  he  represents.  But  the 
course  of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth  ;  and  there  is  nothing 
too  strange  for  the  errant  course  of  this  act  aptly  called  by  the 
author  "  a  Classi  co-Roman  tic  Phantasmagoria."  The  wooing  is 
suddenly  interrupted  by  the  startling  tidings  that  Spartan  Mene- 
laus is  approaching,  at  the  head  of  those  heroic  forces,  once  the 
ruin  of  Paris  and  his  sire,  and  of  ill-fated  Ilium.  But  the  chival- 
rous Faust,  nothing  daunted,  goes  forth  with  his  gathered  hosts  to 
the  onset ;  and,  achieving  a  bloodless  victory,  the  most  renowned, 
perhaps,  of  all  the  victories  of  peace,  he  proceeds  with  all  seren- 
ity to  portion  off  conquered  beautiful  Hellas,  with  all  her  outlying 
dependencies,  among  his  brave  followers,  of  hitherto  unknown 
speech  and  race,  German  and  Goth,  Frank  and  Norman.  Yet 
Sparta,  Helen's  ancient  home,  is  enthroned  over  all ;  and  so  Faust 
and  the  world-famous  queen  of  beauty  now  hie  them  to  "  Arca- 
dia, near  by  Sparta's  land,"  where  they  live  in  happiest  union, 
"  thrones  changed  to  bowers,  and  Arcadian-free  their  felicity." 
With  such  marvels  of  invention  does  the  poet  shadow  forth  not 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  179 

only  the  consummation  of  Faust's  aesthetic  culture,  but  also  by  his 
union  with  Helen,  the  harmonious  blending,  in  all  the  domains  of 
that  culture,  of  the  ancient  and  the  modern,  the  classic  and  the 
romantic  ;  and,  moreover  and  finally,  by  a  crowning  phantasm, 
which  we  have  not  the  courage  to  encounter,  the  offspring1  of 
this  union,  —  a  peerless  offspring,  nobler  than  either  parent,  — 
the  genius  of  the  poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  not  even 
Arcadian  bowers  can  be  a  lasting  abode  for  Faust's  aspiring  soul ; 
culture,  though  it  were  the  truest,  and  of  the  truly  beautiful,  is  not 
all  of  life,  nor  yet  the  highest ;  out  from  it  Faust  must  pass  up  to 
something  nobler  and  better,  which  shall  at  last  yield  him  satis- 
faction. Of  this  we  get  a  poetic  glimpse  at  the  very  close  of  the 
act  where  Helen  disappears.  With  parting  words  she  vanishes, 
her  form  melting  into  thin  air ;  but  her  robe  and  veil  dissolve 
into  clouds,  which  lift  up  Faust,  and  bear  him  away  far  above  the 
world,  to  which  he  is  to  return  anon,  and  enter  upon  a  new  and 
the  last  stage  of  his  unresting  career. 

Faust  returns  to  earth,  and  now  to  the  real  world  of  action,  a 
contemplative,  ideal  life  left  behind  him  with  the  vanished  Helen. 
He  now  desires  to  quit  forever  a  life  of  enjoyment,  even  in  those 
nobler  forms  in  which  he  has  sought  it,  even  in  enthusiasm  for 
high  art  and  elegant  letters.  He  will  now  employ  all  his  powers 
in  a  sphere  of  practical  activity,  where  he  will  have  at  heart  the 
weal  of  his  fellow-men,  and  labor  with  cheerful  freedom  in  the 
service  of  mankind.  Even  his  refined  culture  has  yielded  him 
only  a  higher  kind  of  selfish  enjoyment ;  but  now  in  a  career  of 
active  exertion  for  the  good  of  others,  he  sees  a  moral  dignity;  he 
will  be  conscious  of  himself  as  only  a  part,  as  one  member  of  the 
whole  body  of  his  race,  for  which  it  was  designed  that  he  should 
labor  with  the  full  vigor  of  his  faculties.  But  he  brings  out  with 
him  from  his  recent  pursuits  one  great  element  of  success  in  his 
new  career ;  a  sense  for  the  high,  and  the  noble,  and  the  perfect, 
and  an  antipathy  to  all  that  is  common,  and  hollow,  and  unworthy; 
so  that  with  lofty  ideas  in  his  mind,  he  will  project  and  execute 
plans  which  will  be  fruitful  of  beneficent  results.  Accordingly  we 
find  him  turning  again  to  nature,  but  with  a  practical  purpose. 
He  gains  from  the  emperor  a  large  tract  of  coast-land,  hitherto 

1  Goethe  says  himself,  in  Eckermann,  that  he  intended  "  Euphorion  "  to  rep- 
resent Byron  !  His  words,  in  speaking  of  Byron,  are  as  follows  :  "  I  could 
not  make  any  man  the  representation  of  the  modern  poetical  era,  except  him, 
who  undoubtedly  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  greatest  genius  of  our  century." 


180  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

uninhabited,  and  seemingly  uninhabitable  ;  and  this  waste  wilder- 
ness he  recovers  from  the  elements  that  have  desolated  it,  and 
makes  a  fruitful  soil,  on  which  by  and  by  grows  up  a  great,  free, 
and  prosperous  community,  rich  and  happy,  and  useful  in  indus- 
trial arts,  thriving  trade,  and  extended  commerce.  To  such  busy 
and  fruitful  activity  he  devotes  his  last  years ;  an  activity  which 
ever  gives  him  new  occupation  and  new  satisfaction,  always  richer 
means  to  larger  ends,  in  which  he  has  a  conscious  joy  of  having 
gained  great  possessions  by  his  own  exertions,  and  which  he  is 
assured  is  promoting  the  physical  and  moral  well-being  of  multi- 
tudes of  men.  But  the  poet  is  not  unmindful  that  in  all  this  life 
of  useful  occupation  Faust  is  not  free  from  error  and  wrong,  that 
Mephistopheles  is  still  by  his  side,  and  though  having  ever  less 
power  over  his  intentions  and  acts,  yet  continues  to  involve  him 
in  evil  and  trouble.  One  episode  he  here  weaves  into  the  drama, 
to  show  the  evils  incident  to  a  sense  of  increasing  prosperity,  and 
an  ambition  for  yet  larger  dominions.  Faust  has  built  a  palatial 
residence,  from  which  he  can  see  his  ships,  as  they  go  out  from 
the  near  harbor  to  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  come  back  laden 
with  their  rich  cargoes.  But  near  by,  and  on  a  little  eminence, 
and  intercepting  his  view,  is  an  humble  dwelling,  under  the  snug 
shelter  of  a  few  linden-trees,  where  live  in  quiet  content  an  aged 
pair,  who  rejoice  in  the  classic  names  of  Philemon  and  Baucis. 
That  little  estate  he  longs  for,  and  must  have ;  exactly  on  that 
eminence  he  would  build  a  high  look-out,  whence  he  may  have  a 
survey  over  all  his  broad  acres,  and  far  away  over  land  and  sea ; 
the  very  sight  of  the  little  cottage  and  the  lindens,  not  his  own, 
stings  him  to  the  heart ;  it  were  enough  to  spoil  the  possession  of 
the  world.  It  is  the  old  story  of  Ahab  and  Naboth's  vineyards, 
and  a  worse  than  Jezebel  is  at  hand,  to  bid  him,  "  arise  and  eat 
bread,  and  let  his  heart  be  merry."  He  summons  Mephistopheles 
and  orders  him  to  get  the  old  people  away  to  a  better  estate  he 
has  ready  for  them.  It  is  the  order  of  a  covetous  heart,  but  it  is 
executed  by  a  foul  wrong,  which  that  heart  had  not  bidden,  at 
least  in  words.  On  that  night  the  cottage  is  fired  and  the  old 
couple  perish  in  the  flames.  Bitterly  does  Faust  repent  him  of 
the  rash  command,  and  indignantly  disavow  its  rasher  execution. 
And  feeling  how  sin  still  clings  to  him  in  all  his  endeavors,  he 
looks  back  with  deepest  sorrow  to  his  compact  with  Mephistophe- 
les, formed  in  evil  day,  when  he  madly  strove  to  break  through 
the  limits  of  man's  being,  and  in  his  despair  cursed  himself  and 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  181 

the  world,  which  he  has  since  found  so  rich  in  beauty,  and  love, 
and  hope,  and  patience,  such  a  wide  and  ever-widening  arena  for 
free  and  ennobling  and  beneficent  action.  In  this  consciousness 
and  confession  of  his  past  errors,  the  poet  seems  to  indicate  the 
final  triumph  in  Faust  of  good  over  evil ;  all  magic  arts  of  super- 
human striving  now  abjured  and  renounced,  he  finds  man's  high- 
est good  in  free  activity  within  the  appointed  limits  of  his  being, 
for  the  general  welfare.  In  such  activity  we  see  him  employed  to 
the  end,  carrying  forward  his  ever-widening,  never  completed 
plans ;  toiling  under  the  burden  of  growing  cares,  and  bearing  up 
under  the  increasing  pressure  of  age  ;  even  in  outward  blindness, 
the  inward  eye  undimmed,  and  the  spiritual  force  unabated ;  till 
at  last,  in  the  joyful  assurance  of  having  created  a  space  for  the 
home  of  millions  of  men,  a  free  people  on  a  free  soil,  he  utters 
that  word  of  satisfaction  to  the  passing  moment,  "  Stay,  thou  art 
so  fair,"  and  his  earthly  career  is  ended.  On  coining  at  last  to 
this  conclusion,  the  reader  may  well  have  the  greatest  doubts, 
whether  this  departure  of  Faust's  was  a  Christian's  death.  And 
with  such  doubts  in  his  mind,  he  will  approach  that  last  scene,  in 
which  Faust's  destiny  is  revealed,  with  a  wonder,  if  indeed  such  a 
death  is  to  be  an  entrance  to  a  Christian's  heaven ;  and  at  the 
same  time  he  may  have  some  perplexity  at  the  thought  that  such 
a  man  after  such  a  probation  should  wander  with  Mephistopheles 
and  his  like  in  all  the  endless  hereafter.  But  the  concluding  scene 
of  the  poem,  which  opens  to  us  the  unseen  world,  and  brings  us 
quite  to  the  verge  of  heaven,  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  poet's  own 
conceptions.  Like  Dante  and  many  other  poets,  Goethe  avails 
himself  of  the  image  in  the  epistle  of  Jude,  of  Michael  the  arch- 
angel contending  with  the  devil  about  the  body  of  Moses,  and  so 
describes  a  contest  over  the  grave  of  Faust  between  the  powers  of 
good  and  evil.  But  Mephistopheles  and  the  rebel  crew  are  awed 
away  by  the  throngs  of  descending  angels  and  redeemed  spirits, 
who  strew  roses  as  they  come,  and  make  the  air  radiant  with  light 
and  vocal  with  their  heavenly  song.  Then  upwards  the  angels 
soar,  bearing  the  soul  of  Faust,  higher  and  higher  ascending,  met 
in  the  air  by  other  hosts  of  heavenly  ones,  the  glorified  fathers  of 
the  church,  choirs  of  blessed  Magdalens,  among  them  the  once 
named  Margaret,  and  still  ever  upwards  they  move,  the  heavens 
all  melodious  with  their  song,  till  at  last  we  hear  wafted  down 
from  the  highest  regions  of  air  the  words  of  the  angels  as  they 
bear  into  heaven  itself  the  new  redeemed  soul :  — 


182  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

"  Delivered  is  the  noble  soul 

From  evil's  dread  dominion  ;  • 

Who  toiling  ever  struggles  on, 

Him  it  is  ours  to  ransom  ; 
And  if  indeed  't  was  his  to  share, 

A  part  in  love  celestial  ; 
Then  hastes  the  blessed  host  to  meet 

And  crown  him  with  their  welcome." 

We  have  given  this  passage,  though  in  an  unworthy  rendering, 
because,  it  contains  the  poet's  solution  of  the  salvation  of  Faust. 
It  is  this  onward  striving  of  a  ceaseless  activity  which  Goethe  has 
made  a  chief  characteristic  of  Faust's  career.  In  all  the  stages  of 
that  career,  we  see  wrought  into  living  practice  the  word  of  the 
"  Preacher,  the  son  of  DaVid,"  "  Whatsoever  thy  hand  findeth  to 
do,  do  it  with  thy  might."  In  all  action,  Faust  has  struggled  with 
difficulties,  obstacles,  temptations,  evil,  making  them  subserve  yet 
higher  strivings  and  higher  living ;  and  for  him,  while  engaged  in 
this  noble  strife,  have  heavenly  powers  of  love  ever  watched  and 
warded,  and  lent  their  celestial  aid.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  poet's 
own  interpretation  of  the  passage  as  he  gave  it  to  Eckermann. 
We  quote  his  words,  as  we  leave  the  poem,  only  premising,  that 
we  think  every  reader  will  find  in  them  a  far  more  distinct  utter- 
ance of  Christian  truth  than  he  has  discovered  in  the  poem  itself. 
"  These  lines,"  he  says,1  "  contain  the  key  to  Faust's  salvation. 
In  himself  an  activity  becoming  constantly  higher  and  purer,  eter- 
nal love  coming  from  heaven  to  his  aid.  This  harmonizes  perfectly 
with  our  religious  view,  that  we  cannot  reach  heavenly  bliss  through 
our  own  strength,  unassisted  by  divine  grace." 

We  have  been  so  long  occupied  with  our  survey  of  the  contents 
of  this  poem,  that  we  have  but  the  briefest  space  left  for  any  re- 
flections on  the  lessons  it  teaches ;  but  perhaps  these  have  been 
anticipated  in  the  course  of  our  remarks.  It  may  be  enough  to 
add,  that  what  has  won  for  Faust  so  many  willing  ears  and  hearts 
is  the  voice  it  has  given  to  the  longing  of  the  human  soul,  im- 
planted in  its  innermost  being,  for  some  all-satisfying  good ;  to  its 
restless  and  yet  weary  strivings  to  reach  such  a  good,  and  the 
manifold  disappointments  and  despair  with  which  it  has  so  often 
come  back  from  its  wanderings  to  and  fro,  nowhere  finding  rest. 
How  full  is  the  world  of  such  spiritual  experiences,  in  the  history 
of  the  humblest  and  of  the  most  exalted  souls !  They  enter  into 

1  Eckermann's  Conversations  (translated  by  Margaret  Fuller),  Boston,  1839, 
p.  409. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  183 

the  most  real  life  of  men,  in  all  times,  under  all  skies ;  they  are 
embodied  in  the  truest  literatures  in  every  form  of  human  speech. 
And  as  we  find  the  clearest  witness  to  the  divine  source  and  true 
destiny  of  the  soul  in  this  aspiration  for  real  and  lasting  good,  in 
this  restless  craving  for  the  satisfaction  of  vast  and  immortal 
wants,  so  do  all  its  dark  struggles,  and  all  its  humiliating  and  de- 
basing errors  and  delusions,  and  the  unrest  and  unhappiness  they 
create,  testify  no  less  clearly  to  its  present  fallen  state.  The 
"  dream  "  of  the  poet  thus  becomes  the  experience  of  the  race :  — 
"  An  infant  crying  in  the  night, 

An  infant  crying  for  the  light, 

And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

This  cry  of  the  soul  for  light  has  nowhere  found  a  clearer  utter- 
ance in  modern  literature  than  in  the  "  Faust "  of  Goethe.  It  is 
this  infinite  longing  for  some  true  and  all-sufficient  good  that 
makes  the  central  force  in  Faust's  being,  and  furnishes  the  never- 
ceasing  press  of  motive  to  all  his  career.  It  is  this  which  drives 
him  from  one  sphere  of  activity  to  another,  from  unsatisfied  spec- 
ulation to  unsatisfying  magic,  from  theory  to  real  life,  and  through 
all  scenes  of  life,  the  highest  and  the  lowest,  sensual  pleasure, 
worldly  ambition,  intellectual  culture.  In  the  "  vanity  and  vexa- 
tion of  spirit "  of  which  Faust  has  constant  experience  in  all  these 
scenes  of  endeavor  and  labor,  the  poet  has  clearly  taught,  at  least 
on  its  negative  side,  the  great  truth  of  the  soul's  high  destiny. 
Indeed,  only  in  that  sad  but  most  instructive  Book  of  Ecclesiastes 
are  we  taught  more  impressively  how  vain  is  all  earthly  good,  how 
inadequate  all  human  wit  and  travail,  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
human  soul.  Like  the  Royal  Preacher,  Goethe  has  also  inculcated 
the  wisdom  of  resignation  and  of  strenuous  activity  within  our 
allotted  sphere  ;  yet  he  has  failed  to  bring  us  to  that  grand  "  con- 
clusion of  the  whole  matter,  Fear  God,  and  keep  his  command- 
ments :  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man."  But  only  from  the 
experiences  of  those  who  have  learned  in  the  school  of  Christ,  and 
have  been  enlightened  and  renewed  by  divine  grace,  do  we  reach, 
in  its  positive  form,  the  great  truth  that  man  was  made  for  God, 
and  only  in  Him  can  find  fullness  of  blessing  and  peace.  How 
does  this  truth  shine  out  in  the  writings  of  Augustine,  who,  after 
having  traversed  the  whole  world,  and  consulted  all  its  oracles, 
and  found  them  dumb  to  his  anxious  question,  "  Who  will  show 
us  any  good,"  heard  at  last  a  voice l  as  from  heaven,  speaking  out 
1  Aug.  Con/,  viii.  29. 


184  GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

of  "  the  lively  oracles  "to  his  stricken  and  contrite  spirit,  "  Not 
in  rioting  and  drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and  wantonness, 
not  in  strife  and  envying;  but  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;" 
and  in  that  voice  found  entire  response  to  the  cravings  of  his  soul, 
and  by  its  guidance  reached  the  crowning  experience  of  perfect 
and  enduring  peace,  in  the  knowledge  of  God  as  revealed  in 
Christ  and  by  Christ,  and  in  His  love  and  His  service.  How  sim- 
ply is  this  truth  declared  in  that  golden  saying  of  his,1  "  Our  ra- 
tional nature  is  so  great  a  good,  that  there  is  no  good,  wherein  we 
can  be  happy,  save  God ; "  and  how  is  it  summed  up  in  that  brief 
prayer,2  the  utterance  alike  of  true  wisdom  and  devout  piety: 
"Fecisti  nos  ad  Te,  Domine,  et  inquietum  est  cor  nostrum,  donee 
requiescat  in  Te  !  " 

1  Aug.  de  Nat.  Boni,  c.  7.  2  Aug.  Con/,  i.  1. 


u  •  ,- 

GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

WRITTEN     FOR    THE    FRIDAY    CLUB,     DECEMBER    31,    1869,    ALSO 
PRINTED    IN   THE    "BAPTIST    QUARTERLY." 

MR.  GLADSTONE'S  rising  political  honors,  crowned  now  by  the 
highest  distinction  of  an  English  statesman's  life,  have  not  weaned 
him  from  his  Homeric  studies ;  from  their  renewal  and  further 
prosecution  he  has  not  been  withdrawn  by  the  engrossing  cares, 
incident  to  his  exalted  position,  as  the  head  of  the  British  govern- 
ment, and  the  leader  of  its  parliamentary  councils.  His  intervals 
of  rest  from  public  affairs  he  has  devoted  to  the  composition  of 
a  work  which  in  one  volume  embodies  in  a  new  form,  by  con- 
densation and  important  modifications,  the  results  of  the  three 
volumes  of  his  Studies  on  Homer  and  the  Homeric  age,  which  he 
gave  to  the  world  in  1858.  We  are  all  so  familiar  with  his 
commanding  person  on  the  most  recent  fields  of  English  parlia- 
mentary  strife,  that  we  wonder  at  first,  as  we  discern  him  in  those 
far-off  times  of  Homer,  the  early  morning  of  our  race,  gazing 
with  the  spirit  of  a  student  of  human  nature  and  society  upon, 
the  poet's  immortal  pictures  of  the  "  Youth  of  the  World,  the 
Gods  and  Men  of  the  Heroic  Age  of  Greece."  Nothing  but  the 
consideration  of  such  a  spirit  in  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  of  the  estimate 
it  has  won  for  him  of  the  greatness  of  Homer's  genius,  and  of  his 
unrivaled  influence  in  the  purely  human  culture  of  the  world, 
could  sufficiently  explain  to  us  such  a  diversion  from  the  absorbing 
offices  of  public  life  to  the  various  and  profound  studies  which  are 
contained  in  this  volume.  It  is  not  enough  that  we  recall  from 
history  examples  like  that  of  the  great  Roman  orator,  of  men  who 
have  sought  relaxation  from  the  harassing  influence  of  public 
affairs  in  literary  or  philosophical  pursuits  as  remote  as  possible 
from  their  daily  avocations.  Nor  is  it  enough  that  we  remember 
the  tenacious  hold  upon  the  mind  in  after  life  of  the  associations 
of  classical  study  in  earlier  years,  the  abiding  force  of  those  tastes 
for  all  that  is  beautiful  and  ennobling  in  ancient  letters,  which 
grew  up  insensibly  in  the  season  of  youth,  under  the  propitious 
influences  of  place  and  books,  and  teachers  and  companions,  the 


186  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDL 

lingering  witchery  of  eloquence  and  song,  which  then  first  caught 
the  ear  and  led  captive  the  soul,  the  enthusiastic  admiration  and 
love  for  the  great  writers  of  antiquity  which  with  so  many  scholars 
was  first  awakened  in  that  springtime  of  intellectual  life,  and 
cherished  in  itg  subsequent  periods,  the  grace  of  manhood  and  the 
solace  of  age.  All  this  doubtless  belongs  to  Mr.  Gladstone's 
experience,  but  much  more  also ;  far  deeper  sources  it  has,  to  feed 
as  from  a  perennial  fountain  the  stream  of  his  Homeric  studies. 
Such  a  source  is  his  assured  conviction  that  the  works  of  Homer, 
which  form  the  delight  of  the  scholar's  boyhood,  are  designed  yet 
more  for  the  instruction  of  his  maturer  years ;  that  coming  down 
to  us  from  the  earliest  period  of  antiquity,  and  from  the  opening, 
genial  stage  of  culture  in  the  intellectual  life  of  its  most  highly 
gifted  people,  they  yield  us  most  precious  knowledge,  fresh  and 
original,  touching  man's  nature  and  life  and  destiny,  founded 
upon  experience,  and  wrought  into  lifelike  and  living  pictures  of 
human  character  and  society,  by  a  creative  genius  to  whom  has 
been  assigned,  by  general  consent,  the  supremacy  among  poets. 
The  world's  youth  Mr.  Gladstone  sees  in  those  creations  of  Homer's 
genius ;  but  not  in  the  sense  in  which  Hegel  uses  the  image,  of  the 
entire  life  of  the  Greeks  as  it  was  opened  by  the  fabulous  youth 
Achilles  and  closed  by  the  youth  of  historic  reality,  Alexander  the 
Great;  in  that  grand  Homeric  world,  its  Olympian  heavens  of 
immortal  gods  overarching  its  earth,  trodden  by  heroic  men,  he 
beholds  the  youth  itself  of  youthful  Greece;  when  the  Greek 
mind  was  just  exulting  in  the  elastic  play  of  its  young  energies, 
unfolding  its  marvelous  powers,  and  bounding  forth  into  the 
future,  rejoicing  in  its  strength  to  run  the  race  of  a  great  destiny 
in  the  intellectual  history  of  man.  It  is  the  consideration  of  this 
destiny  of  the  Greeks,  not  even  yet  all  fulfilled,  to  be  a  chief  and 
original  influence  in  moulding  the  intellectual  education  of  the 
world,  which  invests  the  poems  of  Homer  with  a  quite  inestimable 
intrinsic  value.  For  in  these  poems  are  the  germs  of  that  lofty 
destiny ;  there  are  the  sources  of  the  power  by  which  it  was 
achieved ;  they  had  for  the  Greeks  of  all  periods  a  place  of  honor 
and  influence,  even  as  of  sacred  books ;  they  were  an  acknowledged 
authority  on  all  subjects  of  national  concern,  language,  government, 
letters,  art,  religion ;  studied  and  quoted  by  philosophers  in  their 
schools,  listened  to  by  the  people  in  their  solemn  assemblies,  their 
preservation  counted  by  statesmen  a  sacred  trust,  and  made  an 
object  of  public  policy,  they  entered  as  a  vital  and  animating 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDL         187 

force  into  that  Greek  mind  which,  by  its  literature,  philosophy, 
and  art,  has  penetrated  all  modern  culture  and  the  entire  civilized 
life  of  Christendom.  It  is  the  impulse  of  such  convictions  as 
these  which  has  brought  Mr.  Gladstone  before  the  public  as  an 
interpreter  of  Homer ;  not  so  much  in  the  interest  of  classical 
studies  and  scholarship,  to  delight  himself  again  in  the  surpassing 
charms  of  Homer's  poetry,  and  to  make  others  sharers  in  his 
renewed  enjoyment,  but  in  the  larger  interests  of  knowledge  and 
truth  to  hold  up  the  great  poet  as  an  appointed  teacher  of  mankind, 
and  to  commend  the  conclusions  he  has  himself  reached  of  the 
vital  connection  of  these  poems  with  the  whole  history  of  human 
culture  and  of  the  Providential  government  of  the  world.  Some 
of  these  conclusions  Mr.  Gladstone's  readers  will  doubtless  readily 
accept ;  from  others,  though  the  very  ones  which  he  himself  deems 
of  essential  moment,  they  will  just  as  strongly  dissent,  as  when 
they  first  encountered  them  in  his  former  writings;  but  all  of 
them  must  command  admiration  for  the  enthusiasm  in  Homeric 
study  which  they  display,  and  for  the  earnest  spirit  from  which 
they  emanate,  and  which  gives  them  an  interest  quite  independent 
of  the  consideration  of  their  truth  and  importance.  The  present 
work  presents  the  results  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Homeric  studies  far 
more  completely  than  the  former  quite  too  extended  volumes ;  the 
repetitions  which  occurred  in  those  three  large  volumes  are  now 
withdrawn ;  the  minute  particulars,  which  were  sometimes  tedious 
and  wearisome,  are  here  wrought  into  general  views ;  and  some  of 
his  more  peculiar  opinions,  to  which  exception  was  taken  when 
they  first  appeared,  are  at  least  toned  down,  with  a  manifest 
improvement  in  the  general  effect.  By  the  new  treatment  the 
author's  work  has  become  a  kind  of  manual  which  aims  to  furnish 
practical  assistance  to  the  study  of  Homer  in  schools  and  uni- 
versities, and  also  to  "  convey  a  partial  knowledge  of  the  subject 
to  persons  who  are  not  habitual  students." 

We  propose,  in  this  article,  to  touch  upon  some  of  the  preliminary 
topics  discussed  in  this  work,  and  to  give  special  attention  to  the 
subject  of  chief  interest  in  it,  —  the  Religion  of  the  Homeric  Age. 

It  is  the  surest  of  the  results,  that  we  reach  anew,  in  reading 
this  latest  of  so  many  works  on  the  poems  of  Homer,  that  not- 
withstanding the  unequaled  influence  which  these  poems  have 
exerted,  the  world  has  no  definite  knowledge  of  their  author.  It 
is  something  which  never  ceases  to  be  strange,  that  apart  from 
the  poems  themselves,  the  poet  has  for  us  no  real  existence ;  and 


188  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

for  any  real  knowledge  we  have,  the  figure  of  Homer,  even  as  of 
Achilles  or  of  Agamemnon,  seems  to  be  ever  hovering  on  the 
borders  of  an  imaginary  world.  Where  and  when  he  was  born, 
who  were  his  parents  and  kindred,  under  what  influences  of  home 
and  society,  of  nature  and  life,  he  grew  up,  and  developed  his 
wondrous  poetic  faculty,  —  on  all  such  questions  as  these  no  light 
is  shed,  save  that  which  shines  out  from  his  own  luminous  poetry. 
In  antiquity  itself,  cities  not  seven  alone,  but  cities  without  number, 
contended  for  the  honor  of  giving  him  birth ;  and  in  the  persons 
of  learned  critics  they  are  contending  for  it  still,  and  the  contention 
no  nearer  its  end ;  and  we  must  be  content  to  leave  this  question 
in  the  darkness  in  which  we  find  it. 

As  little  have  we  any  external  authorities  to  fix  the  time  of  the 
poet's  life ;  here,  too,  the  poems  themselves  are  their  own  most 
trustworthy  witness.  But  even  if  we  rely  alone  upon  internal 
evidence,  and  admit  the  view  that  the  poems  depict  a  state  of 
Grecian  society  and  manners  far  anterior  to  the  earliest  historic 
period,  we  are  hardly  prepared  for  Mr.  Gladstone's  so  quietly 
dismissing,  by  inference,  the  opinion  of  Herodotus,  which  fixes 
the  poet's  life  so  late  as  the  ninth  century  before  Christ ;  for 
certainly  it  were  nothing  improbable  for  a  poet  of  Homeric  genius, 
an  heir  to  a  rich  inheritance  of  traditions  in  story  and  song,  to 
fashion  his  material  into  such  fresh  pictures,  even  if  he  were 
himself  living  long  after  the  age  from  which  those  traditions  had 
come  down.  But  yet  where  all  is  so  uncertain,  we  may  be  inclined 
to  follow  a  writer  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  fine  Homeric  tp,ct,  and  carry 
back  the  poet  to  a  period  earlier  than  that  of  the  ancient  opinions, 
and  set  him  down  in  the  congenial  proximity  of  his  own  gods  and 
heroes. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  inclined  to  put  the  fall  of  Troy  earlier  than 
the  received  date  of  1183  B.  c.,  and  it  is  his  conjecture  that 
Homer  may  have  been  born  before  or  during  the  war,  and  that  he 
was  probably  conversant  with  those  who  had  fought  in  it.  But 
whatever  date  may  be  fixed  for  the  poet's  life,  the  poems  themselves 
have  for  Mr.  Gladstone  the  highest  historical  character  for  the 
age  which  they  represent.  Nowhere,  either  in  the  present  volume 
or  in  his  earlier  work,  does  he  write  with  greater  earnestness  than 
when  he  contends  that  the  song  of  Homer  is  historic  song.  In 
the  sense  in  which  the  assertion  is  made  nothing  can  be  truer. 
Not  of  course  that  he  wrote  history,  and  narrated  and  unfolded, 
in  the  connection  of  time  and  of  cause,  events  in  the  life  of  men 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDL  189 

and  of  nations ;  admit,  too,  that  he  used  fiction,  as  indeed  no 
other  writer  before  or  since ;  admit,  too,  the  supernatural  element 
that  enters  so  largely  into  the  poetry ;  still,  as  the  Greek  Strabo 
contended  long  ago,  the  basis  of  the  whole  was  history ;  he  was 
historical  in  the  representation  of  the  ideas,  manners,  and  customs, 
characters  and  institutions  of  real  men,  and  of  a  state  of  society 
that  had  a  real  existence.  Never  ceasing  to  be  poet,  he  is  always  a 
historian.  Far  more  than  the  great  dramatists  of  his  own  country, 
far  more  than  any  other  epic  or  dramatic  poet,  it  was  his  to 
reproduce,  in  poetic  form,  the  manifold  life  of  an  entire  age  and 
people ;  indeed,  it  is  Mr.  Gladstone's  firm  belief  that  he  has  told 
more  about  the  world  and  its  inhabitants  at  his  own  epoch  than 
any  historian  that  ever  lived.  It  is  clear  from  the  concurrent 
belief  of  the  Greeks  of  all  times,  and  from  the  whole  economy 
and  texture  of  the  poems,  that  the  tales  of  Troy  and  the  wanderings 
of  Ulysses,  though  unrivaled  works  of  the  imagination,  yet  have 
in  them  the  substance  of  historic  truth ;  they  are  the  record  of 
real  events,  during  which  and  by  which  the  Greeks  were  coming 
into  the  reality  and  the  consciousness  of  a  united  national  life. 
To  adopt  Mr.  Gladstone's  strong  language,  they  make  "  the  first 
and  also  the  best  composition  of  an  age,  the  most  perfect '  form  and 
body  of  a  time,'  that  has  ever  been  achieved  by  the  hand  of  man.", 
Far  less  space  than  might  have  been  expected  has  Mr  Glad- 
stone devoted  to  what  has  been  called  the  Homeric  question,  — 
that  great  controversy  which  has  so  profoundly  agitated  the 
learned  world  for  nearly  a  century,  and  has  not  yet  wholly  sub- 
sided. Nothing  in  all  the  annals  of  criticism  is  more  remarkable 
or  more  fruitful  of  instruction  than  the  history  of  this  controversy. 
Its  very  origin  shows  how  the  greatest  results  may  come  out  of 
the  smallest  beginnings,  how  the  smallest  seed  of  doubt  or  suspi- 
cion may  become  the  germ  of  a  deep  and  universal  skepticism. 
For  more  than  twenty-five  centuries  Homer  had  lived  in  the  faith 
of  men,  and  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  each  as  a  great  epic,  one 
and  entire,  had  commanded  general  admiration  as  the  works  of 
his  genius.  Through  all  the  ages  of  Grecian  letters,  with  all  the 
disputes  concerning  the  time  and  place  of  Homer's  life,  there  was 
a  general  agreement  on  those  fundamental  points.  The  only  note 
that  ever  arose  to  break  the  harmony  came  from  the  so-called 
chorizontes  or  separatists,  who  contended  for  a  separate  author- 
ship of  the  two  poems  ;  but  this  discordant  note  was  effectually 
silenced  by  the  voice  of  Aristarchus,  the  Coryphaeus  of  the  Alex- 


190  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

andrine  critics.  For  centuries  after  the  revival  of  learning  the 
prevailing  belief  of  antiquity  was  the  unquestioned  creed  of  all 
modern  scholars ;  just  as  little  doubt  existed  concerning  the  au- 
thorship of  those  great  epics  which  had  arisen  again  as  bright 
as  in  that  early  morn  of  Grecian  poetry,  as  of  the  great  poem 
which  had  heralded  the  day  of  English  song,  the  Canterbury 
Tales.  But  about  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
were  thrown  out  quite  incidentally,  by  several  writers,  some  sur- 
mises touching  the  authorship  of  the  poems,  which  led  the  way  to 
an  entirely  new  view  of  their  origin.  In  particular,  the  ingenious 
Neapolitan  thinker  Vico,  in  his  celebrated  work,  the  "Scienza 
Nuova,"  introduced  into  the  illustrations  of  his  great  subject  from 
the  Homeric  poems  the  following  passage  : 1  — 

"  Homer  left  none  of  his  compositions  in  writing ;  but  the  rhapsodists 
went  about  singing  the  books  separately,  some  one,  some  another,  at  the 
feasts  and  public  solemnities  of  the  Greek  cities.  The  Pisistratidae  first 
arranged,  or  caused  to  be  so  arranged,  the  poems  of  Homer  into  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  ;  whence  we  may  judge  what  a  confused  collection  of 
materials  they  must  previously  have  been." 

Out  of  the  hint  given  in  this  brief  passage  was  afterwards 
elaborated  the  celebrated  theory  of  Wolf,  in  his  able  and  learned 
Prolegomena  to  the  Iliad.  This  work,  by  its  destructive  criti- 
cism, founded  partly  upon  the  supposed  impossibility,  without  the 
aid  of  the  art  of  writing,  of  the  composition  of  poems  of  such 
length  by  one  mind,  as  well  of  their  subsequent  oral  transmission, 
and  partly  upon  their  acknowledged  internal  discrepancies,  quite 
overturned  the  old  order  of  opinion.  Wolf  ascribed  different 
parts  of  the  two  poems  to  different  authors,  and  assumed  that 
they  were  both  for  the  first  time  arranged  as  well  as  committed  to 
writing  by  Pisistratus.  Without  attempting  to  narrate  the  con- 
troversy which  was  opened  up  by  this  great  critic  all  over  the 
learned  world,  and  the  manifold  phases  it  assumed,  it  is  sufficient 
to  note  as  the  chief  immediate  results,  that  the  two  great  epics 
were  variously  divided  up  into  rhapsodies  or  small  songs,  and  so 
in  the  multitude  of  Homers  that  arose  on  the  field  of  view  Ho- 
mer himself  was  quite  lost  out  of  sight  and  out  of  being.  But 
now,  after  these  many  years,  the  sequel  has  shown,  and  is  still 
showing,  that  Wolf  conferred  a  real  service,  not  only  to  Homeric 
criticism,  but  to  the  cause  of  classical  and  literary  criticism  in 
general ;  a  real  service  of  skepticism  not  unlike  that  rendered  by 
1  Quoted  by  Mure,  in  Hist.  Gr.  Lit.  vol.  i.  p.  196. 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI.  191 

Hume  in  the  domain  of  philosophy.  This  indeed  is  the  lesson  of 
chief  value  taught  by  this  great  critical  contest,  the  lesson  that 
the  work  of  demolition  of  long-established  human  opinions  may 
be  followed  by  their  reconstruction  upon  new  and  more  solid 
foundations ;  that  the  processes  of  an  honest  skepticism  reestab- 
lish the  old  faith  on  a  basis  of  clearer  and  larger  intelligence  and 
of  enduring  truth.  The  whole  field  of  Homeric  learning  has 
been  explored  as  never  before,  and  by  hundreds  of  sharp-sighted 
observers ;  the  text  of  the  poems  has  been  subjected  to  the  most 
searching  scrutiny ;  all  the  evidences,  external  and  internal,  that 
bear  upon  their  origin  and  history  have  been  brought  in  from 
all  sources  and  rigorously  applied  to  the  questions  in  issue ;  and 
the  result  has  been  a  gradual  reaction,  a  progressive  tendency  of 
return  to  the  old  view  of  the  substantial  unity  of  each  poem  and 
of  their  common  authorship  in  Homer.  Such  is  the  position  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  present  volume,  as  in  his  earlier  work ;  such, 
too,  before  him  was  the  position  of  Mure,  the  author  of  the  "  His- 
tory of  Greek  Literature,"  and  the  ablest  of  all  English  writers 
on  the  subject.  The  most  signal  illustration,  indeed,  of  the  result 
of  the  new  examination  of  the  whole  question  is  found  in  the 
experience  of  Mure,  who  began  his  career  as  a  zealous  disciple  of 
the  Wolfian  school,  and  after  twenty  years'  diligent  scrutiny  of 
its  doctrines  reached  a  thorough  conviction  of  their  fallacy,  and 
gave  himself,  with  great  success,  to  the  duty  of  establishing  that 
conviction  in  the  minds  of  others.1  The  chief  foundation  of  the 
position  which  has'  been  thus  secured  lies  in  the  subjective  evi- 
dence furnished  by  the  poems  themselves;  and  this  has  been 
allowed  by  all  critics,  during  the  more  recent  stages  of  the  con- 
troversy, to  be  the  only  valid  basis  on  which  the  question  can 
be  treated.  The  objections  urged  against  the  unity  of  authorship 
of  each  poem  by  itself,  and  of  both  together,  which  are  founded 
on  internal  inconsistencies,  signally  fail  of  reaching  their  mark. 
If  they  do  not,  when  rightly  considered,  lend  direct  support  to 
the  opposite  view,  they  prove  far  too  much ;  they  may  be  urged 
with  like  success  against  modern  works,  the  single  authorship  of 
which  is  unquestioned  and  unquestionable ;  indeed,  most  strikingly 
has  it  been  said  by  Mure,2  that  if  the  principles  of  Wolf's  school 
were  enforced  against  his  own  Prolegomena,  that  great  essay 
could  not  possibly,  in  its  integrity,  be  considered  the  work  of  the 
same  author. 

1  Hist.  Gr.  Lit.  vol.  i.  p.  222.  2  Hist.  Gr.  Lit.  vol.  i.  p.  198,  note. 


192  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

But  we  are  not  left  to  such  a  negative  view ;  there  is  an  affir- 
mative one  still  stronger.  The  unanswerable  argument  for  unity 
of  authorship  is  derived  from  the  general  agreement  of  each  poem 
in  itself,  and  of  both  with  each  other,  in  all  that  is  vital  in  their 
character,  in  the  marvelous  consistency  in  conceptions,  manners, 
and  institutions,  and,  most  of  all,  in  the  delineations  of  character. 
In  nothing  is  the  creative  genius  of  Homer  so  great  as  in  the 
astonishing  variety  of  his  original  characters,  and  in  the  unity 
and  individuality,  no  less  astonishing,  with  which  all  these  char- 
acters are  sustained,  not  by  description,  but  by  dramatic  action, 
as  they  live  and  move  before  us,  under  all  diversities  of  situation. 
Now,  how  were  it  possible  for  such  conceptions  of  character,  so 
rounded  into  harmony  and  oneness,  to  have  emanated  from  vari- 
ous minds,  each  contributing  by  one  or  more  minstrel  lays  his 
share  of  the  whole  ?  How,  for  instance,  could  the  Achilles  of  the 
Iliad,  and  the  Ulysses  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  together,  be  the 
offspring  of  more  than  one  mind  ?  Nor  is  the  difficulty  of  belief 
entirely  given  in  the  well-known  remark  of  Professor  Wilson : l 
"  Some  people  believe  in  twenty  Homers.  I  believe  in  one.  Na- 
ture is  not  so  prodigal  of  her  great  poets."  It  is  worse  than 
this :  you  have  to  believe,  not  merely  that  nature  is  so  prodigal 
of  her  great  poets,  but  that  she  cast  them  all  in  the  very  same 
mould,  and  that  their  spiritual  life,  in  itself,  and  in  everything  it 
produced,  carried  on  it  the  same  identical  stamp.  Indeed,  we  must 
all  agree  in  the  conclusion  that  if  there  is  anything  in  the  world 
more  marvelous  than  the  existence  of  one  Homer,  that  certainly 
is  the  existence  of  more  Homers  than  one.  But  whoever  wrote 
these  poems,  and  wherever  and  whenever  they  first  became  vital 
and  vocal  with  their  wondrous  life  and  melody,  one  thing  is  sure, 
here  they  are  before  us.  Let  learned  critics  settle  at  their  leisure 
the  questions  of  authorship  and  integrity  of  the  text ;  we  have 
the  poems  themselves,  —  a  rich  legacy  bequeathed  to  us,  and 
sacredly  handed  down  from  the  earliest  ages  ;  literary  records  of 
antiquity,  later  than  the  Vedas,  indeed,  but  far  more  valuable ; 
second  in  time  and  value  only  to  the  earlier  books  of  Scripture. 
Here  they  are  in  our  hands,  to  charm  and  delight  us  with  their 
transcendent  poetry,  to  instruct  us  with  their  precious  stores  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge,  to  bring  before  us,  in  speech  and  action, 
the  whole  life  and  character  of  the  Greeks  in  that  early  period  of 
their  own  history  and  of  mankind ;  how  and  for  what  they  lived, 
1  Blackwood's  Magazine,  1831,  p.  668. 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDL  193 

in  the  family  and  in  the  state,  in  peace  and  in  war,  what  were 
their  thoughts  and  conceptions  of  nature,  and  of  hunlan  life  and 
destiny,  and  of  the  nature  and  power  of  God,  and  his  govern- 
ment of  the  world. 

The  religious  aspect'  of  this  ancieot  Greek  life  has  justly  had 
for  Mr.  Gladstone  far  greater  attractions  than  any  other.  He 
has  devoted  more  than  one  third  of  his  work  to  the  gods  of  the 
Heroic  Age,  or,  as  he  has  entitled  the  theme,  the  Olympian  Sys- 
tem. All  thoughtful  minds  must  sympathize  with  the  writer  in 
his  sense  of  the  profound  interest  which  belongs  to  this  theme. 
With  what  and  how  much  spiritual  vision  those  heroic  Greeks 
were  wont  to  look  into  the  unseen  world  ;  what  were  their  concep- 
tions of  deity ;  what  and  how  they  believed ;  whom  they  wor- 
shiped ;  and  what  power  their  faith  and  worship  had  upon  their 
conduct  in  life,  —  these  are  inquiries  of  paramount  and  of  uni- 
versal and  permanent  concern.  Mr.  Gladstone's  discussion  has 
also  a  special  value  at  the  present  time ;  for  though  not  conducted 
in  the  interest  of  the  comparative  study  of  the  religions  of  the 
world,  it  is  nevertheless  an  important  contribution  to  that  study, 
which,  following  close  upon  the  track  of  comparative  philology,  is 
now  rising  to  the  rank  of  a  science,  and  is  engaging  the  profound 
attention  of  many  distinguished  writers.  It  is  evident  that  Mr. 
Gladstone  has  elaborated  this  part  of  his  work  with  the  most  stu- 
dious care,  and  with  a  certain  fondness  of  mental  application.  It 
exhibits  best  his  characteristic  qualities  as  a  scholar,  as  well  as  a 
thinker  and  a  writer,  his  patient  and  unwearied  toil  in  the  study 
of  the  Homeric  text,  and  his  fine  sensibility,  as  well,  for  all  that 
is  beautiful  and  noble  in  Homeric  poetry ;  his  pure  and  elevated 
sentiments,  and  his  forcible  and  brilliant  expression ;  and  yet,  with 
all  his  moral  earnestness  and  sincerity,  a  strange  turn  of  mind  for 
something  close  akin  to  a  sophistical  mode  of  reasoning,  a  tendency 
to  make  his  wish  father  to  his  thought,  which  sometimes  issues 
only  in  ingenious  speculations  and  the  most  laborious  building 
up  of  favorite  views  upon  a  basis  too  slender  for  their  support. 

In  his  first  chapter  on  this  subject,  which  exhibits  the  great 
features  of  the  Olympian  system,  Mr.  Gladstone  claims  for  Homer 
the  unique  distinction  of  having  been  "  the  maker  of  the  reli- 
gion "  of  his  country.  It  is  a  bold  form  of  assertion,  and  quite 
characteristic  of  the  author ;  but  it  contains  in  it  a  great  truth, 
designed,  as  it  is,  to  express  in  a  single  word  the  creative  power 
and  immense  influence  of  Homer's  poetic  genius  in  the  realm  of 


194  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

spiritual  ideas.  Not  that  it  was  the  poet's  conscious  purpose  to 
luake  a  religion  for  his  countrymen,  or  even  to  teach  them  religion, 
or  to  exercise  among  them  and  for  them  any  prophetic  or  priestly 
office.  He  was  preeminently  a  singer,  the  prince  of  singers,  in  an 
age  and  a  nation  where  minstrelsy  was  a  kind  of  national  gift ; 
and  he  sang  of  the  manifold  life  of  his  people  out  of  the  fullness 
and  freedom  of  a  musical  soul  attuned  to  all  melodies  of  sound  and 
all  moral  harmonies  of  thought  and  feeling ;  but  in  giving  true 
utterance  to  that  life  in  song,  he  had  such  a  knowledge  and 
mastery  of  the  national  heart,  that  by  his  poetical  faculty  he  com- 
bined, in  a  musical  creation  of  his  own,  all  those  religious  senti- 
ments to  which  its  many  chords  were  wont  to  vibrate.  We  may 
not  suppose  that  Homer  created  "  the  gods  many  and  lords  many  " 
that  peopled  the  Greek  Olympus,  or  that  he  invented  their  various 
and  often  conflicting  attributes,  with  all  that  is  in  them  of  the 
grand  and  the  little,  of  the  noble  and  the  base ;  it  were  a  sole- 
cism to  suppose  that  he  himself  made  the  manifold  elements  that 
entered  into  the  Greek  religion ;  all  these  were  already  there  in 
the  heart  and  life  of  the  people,  in  affluent  store,  —  actual  beliefs, 
inherited  traditions  emanating  from  different  periods  and  diverse 
races,  original  human  sentiments,  all  apprehended  with  more  or 
less  distinctness  by  the  popular  mind,  and  controlling  its  convic- 
tions with  more  or  less  practical  force  ;  but  in  his  poetic  represen- 
tation of  the  heroic  age  of  Greece,  it  was  his,  by  his  insight  and 
imagination,  to  give  body  and  form  to  all  this  mass  of  material, 
and  t<J  breathe  into  it  a  living  soul.  In  this  sense  was  he  the 
maker  of  the  Greek  religion ;  thus  it  was  that  he  set  up  once  for 
all  in  the  firmament  of  Hellenic  life  the  Olympian  system,  that 
creation  of  marvelous  splendor  and  of  long-enduring  influence  to 
which  was  drawn  and  fixed  the  upward  gaze  and  faith  of  more 
than  thirty  generations  of  the  most  thoughtful  and  most  vigorous 
races  of  the  world,  and  destined  to  dissolve  away  only  before  that 
religion  from  above,  of  divine  beauty  and  divine  power,  which 
was  enthroned  upon  the  mountains  round  about  Jerusalem  for 
the  spiritual  sway  of  universal  man.  The  material  out  of  which 
the  poet  constructed  his  system  necessarily  derived  the  variety  of 
its  elements  from  the  heterogeneous  character  of  the  Greek  nation 
itself.  The  successive  streams  of  emigration  which  had  flowed 
into  the  peninsula  had  brought  with  them  the  most  various  and 
often  diverse  conceptions  of  deity,  with  their  corresponding  names 
and  attributes  and  forms  of  worship.  All  these  materials,  as  they 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI.  195 

were  now  settling  down  in  the  real  world,  on  the  same  soil,  into 
permanent  relations  of  compromise  and  union,  so  in  the  world  of 
poetry  were  shaped  by  the  hand  of  the  master  "  into  that  intellec- 
tual and  ideal  whole  which  we  know  as  the  Greek  religion."  The 
ethnic  origin  of  this  material  of  religion  Mr.  Gladstone  ascribes 
chiefly  to  the  Pelasgians,  and  to  the  Hellic  families  and  tribes. 
He  claims,  however,  an  important  influence  for  the  Phoenicians, 
and  the  full  development  of  this  Phoenician  element  distinguishes 
his  treatment  of  the  subject  in  this  work  from  that  which  belongs 
to  his  earlier  volumes.  Some  influence,  also,  he  allows,  though 
only  a  very  limited  one,  to  the  Egyptians.  The  view  which,  on  ' 
the  authority  of  some  statements  in  Herodotus,  once  referred  to 
Egypt  the  chief  origin  of  the  Greek  religion,  is  not  sustained  by 
Homeric  evidence.  Scarcely  any  traces  of  Egyptian  influence  in 
Greece  are  found  in  Homer,  and  such  analogies  as  exist  between 
the  mythologies  of  the  two  nations  are  easily  explained  without 
the  supposition  of  any  direct  connection  of  the  one  with  the  other. 
In  describing  the  manner  in  which  Homer  reduced  to  unity  the 
elements  derived  from  all  these  sources,  Mr.  Gladstone  dwells 
upon  the  nature-worship  of  the  Pelasgians  which  prevailed  in 
Greece  before  the  poet's  time,  and  was  now  in  its  decline,  and 
presents  his  view  of  the  different  modes  by  which,  through  the 
application  of  the  anthropomorphic  principle,  the  poet  fashioned 
and  shaped  his  own  Olympian  scheme.  But  we  can  rightly  under- 
stand neither  the  nature-worship  nor  the  Olympian  religion,  with- 
out recurring  to  that  earliest  conception  which  inheres  in  the  very 
heart  of  each,  the  primitive  conception  of  the  Greek  religion  and 
of  all  religion,  the  conception  of  one  supreme  being  as  the  high- 
est object  of  human  faith  and  adoration.  Nothing  is  older,  in  the 
language  of  the  Greek  religion  than  0eos  and  Zevs,1  nothing  older 
in  Greek  religious  thought  than  God,  and  Zeus  as  the  God,  the 
God  of  the  heavens,  the  God  of  light.  Even  Kronos,  time  itself, 
is  later  than  Zeus,  and  contradictory  as  it  may  at  first  seem,  also 
the  patronymics  of  Zeus,  Kronion,  and  Kronides,  the  Son  of 
Time  ;  for  these  do  not  express  time  as  the  origin  of  Zeus,  but 
the  duration  of  his  being  as  the  God  of  Time,  even  as  our  own 
exalted  expression,  the  Ancient  of  Days.  This  fundamental  con- 
ception, together  with  its  very  name,  the  Greeks  had  as  an  original 
common  possession  with  all  their  kindred  of  the  great  Aryan  fam- 
ily of  nations  ;  a  clearly  established  fact  which  we  owe  to  the  com- 
1  Welcker,  Gotterlehre,  vol.  i.  p.  129,  seqq. 


196  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

parative  study  of  language  and  of  religion,  and  to  the  foremost 
expounder  of  their  principles  in  English,  Professor  Max  Miiller. 
For  its  origin,  we  must  go  back  from  the  Greek  to  the  San- 
skrit, the  earliest  deposit  of  Aryan  'speech,  from  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  to  the  Vedas,  the  earliest  records  of  Aryan  faith ;  far 
back  we  must  go  to  the  heights  of  the  Himalayas,  as  the  primi- 
tive Olympus,  the  original  seat  of  Aryan  religion.  The  names 
of  deity  in  Greek  and  in  Latin,  both  the  abstract,  as  0eds,  deus, 
and  the  concrete,  as  Zev's  and  Jupiter,  or  Diespiter,  are  identi- 
cal with  the  corresponding  Sanskrit  names  deva  and  Dyaus  ;  and 
they  are  all  formed  from  the  Sanskrit  root  div,  which  means  to 
shine.1  From  the  same  root  comes  the  Latin  word  dies,  with  all 
its  cognates;  and  thus  all  the  former  words  signify,  fundamen- 
tally, brightness,  light  the  divine,  and  the  latter,  the  God  of  the 
bright  heavens,  the  God  of  light  and  day.  A  single  passage, 
quoted  by  Miiller  2  from  the  Veda,  pours  a  flood  of  light  upon 
the  common  origin  of  all  these  nations  themselves,  and  of  their 
languages  and  earliest  religious  ideas.  It  is  this :  "  When  the 
pious  man  offers  his  morning  libation  to  the  great  father  Dyaus, 
he  trembles  all  over  as  he  becomes  aware  that  the  archer  sent 
forth  from  his  mighty  bow  the  bright  dart  that  reaches  him,  and 
brilliant  himself,  gave  his  own  splendor  to  his  daughter,  the 
Dawn."  In  reading  such  words,  we  seem  to  be  reading  Homer 
himself  ;  nay,  Homer  and  the  people  who  listened  to  his  song  are 
transferred,  forthwith,  back  to  the  old  Aryan  homestead,  and  are 
sharing  there  the  thoughts,  feelings,  words,  the  whole  life,  of  the 
yet  undivided  Aryan  household.  But  we  may  widen  our  view, 
with  the  wider  range  of  this  comparative  study  of  the  languages 
of  the  world.  The  Sclavonic  word  Bog,  which  expresses  the  idea 
of  God,  is  also  of  Sanskrit  origin,  and  is  the  same  word  as  the 
Bhaga  of  the  Veda,  and  the  Baga  of  the  Zend-Avesta,  which 
means,  originally,  the  sun,  and  is  also  a  common  name  for  God  in 
both  those  poems.  Indeed,  we  may  take  an  illustration  of  the 
same  philological  fact  from  a  different  and  quite  remote  family  of 
languages.  In  many  Tatarian  dialects  the  word  tangri,  which  is 
used  for  God,  means  not  only  the  heavens,  but  also  the  great 
Spirit  of  the  all-compassing  heavens ;  and  this  corresponds  en- 
tirely to  the  Chinese  Thian,  or  Tien,  which  is  used  for  the  physi- 

1  Welcker,  Gotterlehre,  vol.  i.  p.  131  ;  also  Miiller  in  Edinburgh  Review  for 
1851. 

3  Edinburgh  Review,  1851,  p.  335. 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDL  197 

cal  heavens  and  for  day,  and  also  means  the  "  Great  One  that 
reigns  on  high  and  regulates  all  below."  1  Indeed,  is  not  in  the 
human  mind  everywhere,  and  in  all  tongues,  the  transition  easy 
and  natural  from  light  and  heaven  to  God  ?  Consider  our  com- 
mon expression,  "  Heaven  knows,"  and  from  the  Psalms,  "  The 
heavens  are  the  Lord's,"  and  from  the  New  Testament  the  confes- 
sion of  the  prodigal,  "  I  have  sinned  against  heaven ; "  nay,  does 
not  this  strange  touch  of  comparative  philology  make  all  Chris- 
tendom kin  with  the  whole  heathen  world,  when  we  remember 
that  comprehensive  word  of  Scripture,  "  God  is  light,  and  in  Him 
is  no  darkness  at  all "  ? 

But  we  may  not  linger  on  this  earliest  stage  of  the  Greek  reli- 
gion. With  the  Greeks,  as  with  all  ancient  nations,  this  primitive 
idea  of  God  came  in  course  of  time,  we  know  not  how  and  when, 
to  suffer  disintegration  ;  out  of  0eos  grew  6*01 ;  with  Zeus  came 
sons  and  daughters  of  Zeus,  also  parents  and  ancestors  of  Zeus ; 
and  so,  with  the  sense  of  the  divine  still  remaining,  there  arose 
out  of  the  conception  of  the  one  God  a  belief  in  the  plurality  of 
gods.  Mr.  Gladstone  has  said  that  "  the  unaided  intellect  of  man 
seems  not  to  have  had  stamina  to  carry,  as  it  were,  the  weight  of 
the  transcendent  idea  of  one  God."  The  truth  of  this  remark  is 
best  seen  in  the  perpetual  turning  to  idolatry  even  of  God's  chosen 
people,  blessed  though  they  were  with  direct  revelation,  and  fenced 
in  and  isolated  from  all  other  nations.  Witness  the  single  humil- 
iating instance  of  the  whole  people  worshiping  a  golden  calf,  and 
that,  too,  under  the  very  shadow  of  the  awful  mount ;  into  such 
an  abyss  of  spiritual  folly  the  Greeks  never  sank,  with  all  the 
corruptions  of  their  polytheism  in  its  corruptest  eras.  This  poly- 
theism in  that  earlier  form,  the  receding  traces  of  which  we  see  in 
Homer,  consisted,  as  is  well  known,  of  the  worship  of  nature  by 
the  deification  of  its  manifold  phenomena,  and  of  the  ruling 
forces  which  produce  them.  Under  the  bright  skies  of  Hellas, 
and  amid  the  enchanting  scenery  of  its  streams  and  hills  and 
vales,  the  susceptible  and  imaginative  Greeks  yielded  themselves 
willing  captives  to  the  potent  spells  of  nature,  even  as  their  Aryan 
kindred  in  India,  when  they  had  crossed  the  Himalayas,  and  had 
come  down  into  their  new  homes  along  the  great  rivers  and  the 
fertile  valleys  of  the  Penjab.  A  recent  writer  2  has  aptly  quoted 
a  passage  from  the  book  of  Job,  which  shows  how  other  Asiatic 

1  Julius  von  Klaproth,  as  quoted  by  Welcker,  Gotterlehre,  vol.  i.  p.  130. 

2  Hardwick,  in  Christ  and  other  Masters,  vol.  i.  p.  176. 


198  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

souls  in  those  distant  times  and  regions  felt  the  same  fascinations, 
but  could  better  resist  them,  through  the  control  of  a  loftier  devo- 
tion :  "  If  I  beheld  the  sun  when  it  shined,  or  the  moon  walking 
in  brightness,  and  my  heart  hath  been  secretly  enticed,  or  my 
mouth  hath  kissed  my  hand,  this  also  were  an  iniquity  to  be  pun- 
ished by  the  Judge;  for  I  should  have  denied  the  God  that  is 
above."  But  no  such  reverence  for  the  God  that  is  above  kept 
back  the  Greeks  from  deifying  and  worshiping  the  manifestations 
of  his  power  as  they  presented  themselves  to  the  senses  in  the  nat- 
ural world  around  them.  Those  great  lights  set  up  in  the  firma- 
ment to  rule  their  daily  life  and  the  on-going  life  of  the  world ;  the 
earth  about  them,  with  its  ever-renewing  wonders  of  growth  and 
decay ;  the  alternations  of  day  and  night  and  the  changing  seasons ; 
the  dewy  freshness  of  the  dawn  and  the  warm  glow  of  the  west- 
ern sky;  the  elemental  air  and  fire  and  water,  in  all  their  varied 
phenomena  of  storm  and  shine,  of  tempest  and  calm,  of  rain  and 
drought,  —  all  these  were  for  the  Greeks  endowed  with  a  divine 
life  and  exalted  into  objects  of  adoration.  Thus,  as  in  the  Veda, 
we  find  with  Dyaus  the  names  and  worship  of  Indra  and  Surya 
and  Mitra  and  Agni  and  Varuna.  So,  too,  among  the  Greeks, 
come  to  be  associated  with  Zeus,  though  always  in  subordination, 
Here  as  the  goddess  of  the  earth,  the  sun-god  in  Helios  and  in 
Apollo,  the  moon  in  Selene,  the  fire-god  in  Hephaistos  or  Vulcan, 
Poseidon  the  sovereign  of  the  ocean,  and  the  other  gods  many  in 
this  Greek  Pantheon  of  nature-worship. 

But  in  the  world  of  Homeric  poetry  this  elemental  worship  no 
longer  holds  sway ;  in  the  Olympian  religion  we  behold  and  feel 
the  presence  of  divine  personages,  of  human  form  and  appearance, 
however  august,  and  of  a  human  nature,  however  idealized.  It  is 
a  strange  transition,  but  no  less  perfect  and  manifest.  How  those 
gods  of  nature  have  passed  out  from  their  shadow-like  figures  into 
persons  of  definite  human  form  and  quality,  inner  and  outer,  is  a 
subtle  process,  no  less  so  than  the  actual  processes  in  the  material 
world.  As  Welcker l  has  conceived  it,  the  nature-god  seems  to 
have  fashioned  for  itself  a  kind  of  chrysalis  of  golden  mythic 
threads,  and  to  have  come  forth  in  due  time  a  divine  human  per- 
sonality. But  the  accomplished  result  is  that  which  gives  the 
Olympian  system  that  distinctive  character  all  its  own,  which,  as 
Mr.  Gladstone  has  expressed  it,  "  is  the  intense  action  of  the  an- 
thropomorphic principle  which  pervades  and  moulds  the  whole." 
1  Gotterlehre,  vol.  i.  p.  230. 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI.  199 

"  Its  governing  idea  of  the  character  of  deity  is  a  nature  essen- 
tially human,  with  the  addition  of  unmeasured  power."  It  is 
obvious  that  such  a  system  gave  expression  to  the  most  exalted 
conception  of  humanity ;  and  though  it  necessarily  debased  the 
divine  idea  by  taking  into  it  the  lower  along  with  the  higher  ele- 
ments of  the  human,  it  nevertheless  embodied  a  worthier  concep- 
tion of  deity  than  the  elemental  system  which  preceded  it.  It 
may  be  said  to  have  presented,  by  a  strange  inversion,  God  formed 
in  the  image  of  man,  instead  of  man  formed  in  the  image  of  God ; 
but  on  the  other  hand  it  must  be  granted  that  it  created  gods  in 
the  image  of  man,  because  it  recognized  the  divine  in  man ;  recog- 
nizing in  the  gods  the  original  source  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
in  man,  it  incorporated  deity  into  an  idealized  manhood,  as  the 
most  adequate  known  expression  of  the  divine  nature.  Thus  the 
creation  of  this  Olympian  system  reveals  a  stronger  and  higher 
spiritual  tendency  in  the  people  whose  religion  it  became,  and  a 
more  advanced  stage  of  their  culture,  than  those  which  gave  origin 
to  the  earlier  nature-worship.  A  new  inner  world  of  thoughts 
and  conceptions  must  have  arisen,  a  high  sense  of  the  greatness 
and  power  of  man's  spiritual  being,  before  the  phenomena  and 
nature  of  forces  so  lost  their  influence  that  these  new  humanized 
deities  were  formed,  moving  free  and  separate  among  the  elements, 
their  true  being  and  sphere  no  longer  in  the  natural  but  in  the 
spiritual  realm.  A  lofty  consciousness  must  there  have  been  of 
free  will  and  reason  and  intelligence  in  man,  of  all  in  his  nature 
that  is  truly  akin  to  the  divine,  so  that  the  religious  sense  could 
no  longer  be  satisfied  with  nature,  or  find  its  appropriate  objects 
in  her  manifestations.  But  it  was  the  muse  of  Hellenic  poetry, 
as  it  culminated  in  the  song  of  Homer,  which  finally  spoke  into 
being  this  Olympian  system,  and  reared  it  up  over  Hellenic  life, 
at  once  to  reflect  and  to  rule  it  in  all  its  relations.  It  was  con- 
ceived not  merely  as  consisting  of  individuals,  but  also  as  forming 
a  divine  community  both  as  a  family  and  a  state,  with  Zeus  for 
the  father  and  the  sovereign.  Here,  too,  as  in  every  stage  of 
Greek  religion,  is  illustrated  that  line  of  Virgil :  — 

"  Ab  Jove  principium  Musse  ;  Jovis  omnia  plena  ; " 

and  yet  more  the  loftier  verse  of  Horace,  when  he  sings  of  the 
parent : — 

"  Unde  nil  majus  generatur  ipso, 
Nee  viget  quidquam  simile  aut  secundum." 

Indeed,  the  pure  light  of  the  idea  of  one  God,  which  had  so  broken 


200  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

into  many  rays  through  the  action  of  the  nature-worship,  seems  in 
the  atmosphere  of  Olympus  to  be  struggling  to  recover  its  integ- 
rity in  the  tendency  to  the  union  of  all  the  principal  Olympian 
deities  with  Zeus  under  the  form  either  of  direct  descent  or  of 
other  relationship  derived  from  human  analogy.  Thus  Poseidon, 
the  ruler  of  the  sea,  and  Ai'doneus,  the  Zeus  of  the  lower  world, 
are  his  brothers ;  and  Here  is  at  once  his  sister  and  spouse ;  Ares, 
Hermes,  and  Aphrodite  are  his  children ;  as  also  and  especially 
Athene  and  Apollo,  who  are  inferior  only  to  Zeus  in  power,  and 
in  moral  tone  superior  to  Zeus  himself.  Indeed,  the  exalted  char- 
acter and  worship  ascribed  to  Athene  and  Apollo  give  them  a 
marked  preeminence  in  the  Olympian  religion.  They  are  united 
with  Zeus  in  honor  as  no  other  deities ;  as  in  the  words  of  Hector,1 
"  Were  I  held  in  honor  as  a  god,  Phoebus  or  Pallas,"  and  the  oft- 
recurring  form  of  prayer,  "  Father  Zeus  and  Athene  and  Apollo." 
Athene's  relation  to  Zeus  as  his  daughter  is  altogether  unique  in 
the  representations  alike  of  her  birth  and  her  being  and  action. 
She  is  his  daughter  without  mother,  begotten  in  the  intelligence 
of  Zeus,  and  (though  by  a  later  representation  than  Homer's) 
bidden  forth  into  being  from  his  head ;  in  the  Olympian  family 
she  is  the  father's  favorite  daughter,  indulged  at  her  will,  and 
restrained  neither  in  word  nor  in  deed.2  She  is  constantly  named 
with  Zeus,  as  acting  with  him  and  for  him,  and  directly  declared 
as  in  union  with  him,  the  highest  and  mightiest  deity.  In  short, 
the  words  of  Horace  give  literal  expression  to  the  Homeric  con- 
ception of  the  goddess :  — 

"  Proximos  illi  tamen  occupavit 
Pallas  honores." 

Similar  is  the  relation  of  Apollo  to  Zeus.  He  is  the  son  dear  to 
Zeus,  addressed  as  such  by  him,  ever  the  obedient  son,  in  closest 
union  with  his  father,  his  organ,  and,  as  the  god  of  prophecy,  the 
revealer  of  his  will.  It  is  on  the  basis  of  the  highest  attributes  of 
these  deities,  together  with  their  peculiar  relation  to  Zeus,  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  has  constructed  that  theory  of  tradition  in  the  gen- 
esis of  the  Hellenic  religion  which  constitutes  the  peculiarity  of 
his  treatment  of  the  whole  subject. 

In  the  firm  conviction  that  these  conceptions  of  deity  could  not 

have  been  the  growth  of  the  unassisted  intelligence  of  the  Greeks, 

he  ascribes  them  to  a  divine  origin,  in  the  form  of  a  primitive 

revelation  made  to  man,  and  preserved  in  unbroken  tradition  to 

1  Iliad,  viii.  540.  2  Iliad,  v.  875. 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI.  201 

the  time  of  the  separation  of  the  Semitic  and  Aryan  branches  of 
the  human  family,  and  so  by  and  by  brought  with  them  into 
Greece  by  the  Hellenic  portion  of  the  Aryan  branch,  and  at  last 
wrought  by  Homer  into  his  Olympian  scheme.  Thus  he  claims 
for  Homer's  Athene  and  Apollo  a  truly  divine  ancestry.  He  com- 
pares them  with  the  child  in  Wordsworth's  ode :  heaven  lies  about 
them  in  their  infancy ;  and  the  soul  that  rises  with  them  "  hath 
had  elsewhere  its  setting,  and  cometh  from  afar."  In  the  no  less 
firm  conviction  that  there  are  features  traceable  in  these  deities 
which  are  in  marked  correspondence  with  Hebraic  doctrine  and 
tradition,  as  conveyed  in  the  books  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  handed 
down  in  the  auxiliary  sacred  learning  of  the  Jews,  he  believes  that 
Athene  is  the  Hellenic  adumbration  of  the  Logos,  the  uncreated 
Word,  and  Apollo  of  the  Messiah,  the  seed  of  the  woman,  a  being 
at  once  divine  and  human ;  and  so  by  consequence,  Latona,  the 
human  mother  of  Apollo,  is  the  woman  whose  seed  the  Redeemer 
was  to  be.  It  passes  comprehension  how  a  writer  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's ability,  and  enlarged  and  elevated  views,  can  build  up  a 
theory  with  devoutest  diligence  upon  so  slender  proofs,  and  liable 
to  the  gravest  objections  ;  which  is  so  repugnant  to  every  Christian 
sentiment,  and  forces  the  explanation,  from  such  foreign  sources, 
of  conceptions  in  the  Greek  religion  which  can  certainly  be  ex- 
plained without  it,  and  without  traveling  out  of  the  records  of  that 
religion  itself.  The  view  which  he  presents,  notwithstanding  all 
the  captivating  enthusiasm  with  which  it  glows,  unfortunately 
lacks  the  elements  necessary  to  gain  for  it  an  intelligent  convic?- 
tion  in  the  mind  of  the  reader.  As  you  yield  yourself  to  his  guid- 
ance, while  he  spreads  before  you  the  minutest  details  of  sugges- 
tion and  illustration,  all  skillfully  interwoven  with  the  cunningest 
hand,  and  embellished  with  a  very  large  border  of  the  finest  writ- 
ing, you  are  conscious  of  admiration,  and  of  something  very  like 
persuasion  ;  but  when  you  have  looked  away  in  another  direction, 
and  then  come  back  for  a  renewed  and  more  independent  view, 
you  discover  that  the  texture  of  the  whole  work  that  has  so  fixed 
your  gaze  is  made  up  of  the  airiest  of  nothings.  It  is  marvelous, 
the  ingenious  facility  and  alacrity  with  which  he  can  proceed  upon 
premises  of  mere  assumptions,  and  rest,  with  calmest  assurance, 
in  conclusions  which  only  credulity  can  believe.  If  we  should 
admit  his  remoter  assumptions,  which  are  indeed  scarcely  discern- 
ible in  those  far-off  primeval  ages  where  they  are  laid,  it  were  cer- 
tainly an  incredible  supposition  that  the  Greeks  had  older  Messi- 


202  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

anic  traditions  than  the  Jews  themselves ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
the  Jews  had  no  such  developed  traditions  old  enough  to  have 
been  borrowed  and  reflected  by  Homer.  The  Apocryphal  Book 
of  Wisdom,  and  the  Hebrew  Targumim,  on  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
largely  relies,  belong  to  a  time  centuries  later  even  than  Plato ; 
and  in  the  Bible  there  is  nothing  which  by  any  possibility  could 
give  substance  to  this  theory  but  the  Messianic  promises  in  Gen- 
esis and  the  personifications  of  wisdom  in  the  Proverbs  of  Solo- 
mon ;  and  out  of  these,  forsooth,  the  poetic  genius  of  Homer  has 
created  Olympian  persons  who  adumbrate  the  Incarnate  Redeemer 
of  man. 

But  even  if  we  should  lean  to  the  influence  of  such  traditions 
in  the  nobler  attributes  of  these  deities,  how  can  we  reconcile 
other  representations  of  their  character  which  run  directly  counter 
to  any  such  supposition  ?  What  a  strange  look  for  such  a  theory, 
the  league  of  Pallas  with  Here  and  Poseidon  to  bind  in  chains 
the  great  father  of  gods  and  men !  And  how  may  we  account  for 
the  opposition  to  each  other  of  Pallas  and  Phoebus  in  the  Trojan 
conflict,  the  former  the  protector  of  the  Greeks,  the  latter  of  the 
Trojans?  What  a  rude  clashing  with  Messianic  ideas  Apollo's 
words  of  sublime  indifference  to  the  fate  of  mortals,  when  he 
declined  to  enter  the  lists  where  gods  and  goddesses  were  in 
furious  combat  over  Ilium's  destiny :  — 

"  Earth-shaking  God,  I  should  not  gain  with  thee 
Esteem  of  wise,  if  I  with  thee  should  fight 
For  mortal  men;  poor  wretches,  who  like  leaves, 
Flourish  awhile,  and  eat  the  fruits  of  earth, 
But  sapless,  soon  decay ;  from  combat  then 
Refrain  we,  and  to  others  leave  the  strife." 

And  Minerva's  wisdom  descends  to  something  more  than  craftiness 
when  she  comes  down  from  heaven  purposely  to  break  the  truce 
of  the  Trojans  with  the  Greeks,  and  in  the  disguise  of  Antenor's 
son  tempts  Pandarus  to  aim  his  stinging  arrow  at  the  breast  of 
the  unsuspecting  Menelaus ;  and  still  worse  when  she  cheats  Hector 
under  the  guise  of  his  trusted  brother  Deiphobus,  and  so  deludes 
him  to  the  fatal  combat  with  Achilles. 

But  it  is  the  most  conclusive  evidence  against  this  whole  theory, 
that  it  is  entirely  gratuitous.  The  conceptions  of  these  deities 
are  adequately  explained  within  the  range  of  Homeric  ideas, 
as  emanations  of  Zeus,  as  he  is  conceived  alike  in  the  realm  of 
nature  and  of  spirit;  and  these  are  the  clearest  illustrations  of 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI.  203 

the  monotheistic  tendencies  of  the  Homeric  system.  Born  of  Zeus, 
as  the  God  of  the  ethereal  heavens,  Athene  represents  the  physical 
side  of  his  nature  as  a  feminine  personification  of  the  ether ;  hence 
her  epithet  yAauKwrn.?,  the  blue-eyed,  or  more  properly  the  goddess 
of  heaven-bright  eyes.  On  the  other  hand,  as  Zeus  is  the  supreme 
intelligence,  so  as  his  daughter  sprung  full  grown  from  his  head, 
she  represents  also  the  spiritual  side  of  his  being,  which  the  name 
Minerva  expresses,  from  the  Greek  /xeVos,  and  the  Latin  mens, 
and  the  Sanskrit  manas,  as  the  goddess  of  mind  or  of  wisdom.  In 
like  manner  all  the  attributes  of  Apollo  are  explained  in  accord- 
ance alike  with  the  Homeric  system  and  with  the  earlier  worship. 
Apollo,  as  the  sublimest  appellation  for  Helios,  the  sun,  finally 
supplants  altogether  the  common  name  ;  he  is  a  solar  deity ;  and 
all  his  attributes,  natural  and  spiritual,  issue  from  this  his  original 
character.  As  son  of  Latona,  which  means  what  is  hidden  and 
concealed,  he  comes  forth  out  of  the  darkness,  and  reveals  the 
brightness  of  the  God  of  heaven,  even  as  the  sun  reveals  the  day. 
So  is  he  the  Phoebus,  the  bright  one ;  and  as  the  God  of  the  silver 
bow,  the  far-darting  and  far-destroying,  the  arrows  of  his  burning 
and  destructive  rays  bring  pestilence  and  death,  even  as  his  milder 
heat  and  radiance  bring  fruitful  blessing  to  the  earth,  and  deliver- 
ance to  the  children  of  men.  In  short,  like  Athene,  he  is  an 
emanation  of  Zeus,  and  reveals  both  his  natural  and  his  spiritual 
attributes  as  the  lord  of  air  and  light,  dwelling  in  the  highest 
heavens,  and  as  the  god  of  justice  and  right,  the  moral  governor 
of  the  world. 

Mr.  Gladstone's  hypothesis  is  the  latest  and  the  very  mildest  of 
all  the  various  theories  put  forth  since  the  revival  of  learning, 
which  discover  in  the  nobler  elements  of  Homeric  theology  traces 
of  patriarchal  and  evangelical  truth,  and  quietly  relegate  all  the 
rest  to  obscure  realms,  which  are  conveniently  named  heathenish 
fable  or  absurd  superstitions  or  degrading  idolatry  and  demon 
worship.  Mure  touched  upon  some  of  these  in  an  article  published 
some  years  ago  on  Archdeacon  Williams'  "  Homerus,"  and  it 
would  be  a  very  curious  and  instructive  labor  to  follow  out  his 
hints,  and  to  collect  together  and  to  present  in  order  the  doctrines 
of  their  authors  and  all  the  subtleties  of  their  allegorical  exposition. 
Gerardus  Croesius,  a  Dutch  scholar,  maintained,  in  his  "  Homerus 
Hebraeus,"  that  the  two  poems  of  Homer  embodied  a  complete 
narrative  of  the  history  of  the  Jews,  the  Odyssey  embracing  the 
time  from  the  departure  of  Lot  out  of  Sodom  to  the  death  of 


204  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

Moses,  and  the  Iliad  narrating  the  destruction  of  Jericho  and  the 
wars  of  Joshua  and  the  final  conquest  of  Canaan.  He  clearly 
discovered  Jericho  in  Troy,  and  Joshua  and  the  Israelites  in 
Agamemnon  and  the  Greeks,  and  the  harlot  Rahab  in  Helen, 
while  Nestor  was  Abraham,  and  Ulysses  Moses.  The  English 
scholar,  Joshua  Barnes,  the  friend  of  Bentley  and  Regius  Professor 
of  Greek  at  Cambridge,  convinced  himself  that  Homer  was  Solo- 
mon, a  conviction  which  he  established  by  reading  Omeros  back- 
wards, in  Hebrew  fashion,  into  Soremo,  and  then  by  metalepsis 
into  Solemo  or  Solomon !  But  Archdeacon  Williams,  in  his 
"  Homerus,"  published  only  twenty-five  years  ago,  carries  the 
principle  of  analogy  into  a  far  wider  range  of  application.  Be- 
lieving to  the  full  Mr.  Gladstone's  doctrine  of  primitive  revelation 
and  tradition,  he  even  traces  in  Homeric  poetry  (we  use  his  own 
words),  "  most  of  the  essential  principles  by  which  the  Christian 
religion  is  distinguished ;  "  with  him,  therefore,  the  Iliad  was 
"  constructed  for  the  express  purpose  of  vindicating  the  justice  of 
the  Deity,  and  displaying  the  inseparable  connection  between  sin 
and  eternal  punishment."  The  fate  of  "  sinful  and  accursed 
Troy,"  as  he  characterizes  Priam's  city  and  people,  illustrates 
atonement  and  retributive  justice,  and  so  foreshadows  the  fall  of 
wicked  cities  yet  to  come,  and  "  above  all,  of  Jerusalem  itself." 
In  this  last  view,  however,  of  Troy  prefiguring  Jerusalem,  the 
Archdeacon  was  anticipated  by  about  two  hundred  years,  by  the 
Italian  writer,  Jacobo  Ugone,  in  his  "Vera  Historia  Romana." 
But  we  think  that  the  writer  or  writers  of  the  "  Gesta  Romanorum," 
a  work  earlier  by  many  centuries  than  those  now  mentioned,  took 
a  much  more  fundamental  view  of  this  whole  subject,  for  the 
monk,  in  that  celebrated  collection,  says  that  "  Paris  represents 
the  devil,  and  Helen  the  human  soul  or  all  mankind  "  ! 

But  is  there  not  "a  more  excellent  way"  of  accounting  for 
the  origin  of  the  Olympian  religion  than  the  method  employed 
by  all  these  and  many  other  writers,  and  in  its  latest  and  faintest 
form  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  a  way  far  more  in  harmony  with  all 
right  views  of  human  nature  and  of  the  wisdom  and  benevolence 
of  the  Creator,  and  also  in  accordance  with  the  results  of  the 
comparative  study  of  all  the  "  religions  which  have  existed  outside 
the  pale  of  divine  revelation"?  May  we  not  find  the  original 
source  of  all  these  religions,  not  in  any  primitive  revelation  or 
tradition,  but  rather  in  what  we  may  call  a  primitive  faith;  a 
faith  in  God,  in  the  true,  even  though  unknown  God,  and  in 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI.  205 

his  rightful  and  righteous  government  of  the  world ;  a  faith  im- 
planted in  the  very  constitution  of  the  human  soul,  and  so  not 
only  anterior  to  all  religious  knowledge,  but  also  essential  to  the 
appropriation  of  such  knowledge,  whether  communicated  by  natural 
or  by  supernatural  means?  Alike  the  truths  and  the  errors  of  the 
Homeric  religion,  the  conceptions  of  deity,  whether  noble  or  base, 
of  the  Homeric  mythology  may  be  carried  back  to  that  inborn 
tendency  of  the  human  soul  to  search  after  God,  which  is  taught 
by  the  apostle  Paul  in  his  sermon  to  the  men  of  Athens,  when  he 
says  of  all  the  nations  of  men,  "  That  they  should  seek  the  Lord, 
if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him  and  find  Him,  though  He  be 
not  far  from  every  one  of  us."  The  same  apostle  was  wont  to  teach 
his  heathen  hearers  that  God  had  not  left  himself  without  witness 
in  the  works  of  nature  and  in  the  human  conscience,  and  that 
from  the  one  men  might  "  clearly  see  the  invisible  things  of  Him, 
even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead,"  and  that  through  the  other 
they  "  showed  the  work  of  the  law  written  in  their  own  hearts." 
And  while  we  are  taught  that  the  pagan  nations  are  without 
excuse,  who  when  they  knew  God,  yet  glorified  Him  not  as  God, 
we  can  set  no  bounds  to  the  spiritual  elevation  which  they  might 
have  reached,  or  which  individual  souls  or  communities  may  have 
reached,  by  giving  heed  to  such  witness,  when  we  remember  the 
words  of  another  apostle,  "  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  but  in 
every  nation  he  that  feareth  Him  and  worketh  righteousness  is 
accepted  of  Him." 

In  the  life  of  the  Greeks,  as  we  see  it  in  the  poetry  of  Homer, 
it  is  this  feeling  after  God  of  which  we  are  constantly  reminded. 
There  is  no  aspect  so  perpetually  present  as  the  religious,  nothing 
so  constantly  seen  as  this  striving  of  the  soul  after  the  one,  living, 
personal  God,  its  upward  turning  for  care  and  blessing  to  a  divine 
Being  like  itself,  but  in  all  things  superior,  the  righteous  ruler  of 
men  and  all  human  affairs,  and  alone  worthy  of  devout  worship 
and  obedient  service.  And  yet  110  less  constantly  do  we  behold 
the  actual  failure  of  the  Greek  mind  to  satisfy  these  longing 
aspirations,  that  continual  contradiction  between  the  real  and  the 
ideal  through  which  the  Deity  is  debased  to  the  level  of  humanity, 
even  in  the  very  act  of  lifting  the  Deity  far  above  all  human 
limitations.  The  distinguished  German  scholar  Nagelsbach  has 
treated  this  point  with  remarkable  clearness  and  fullness.1  The 
gods  are  endowed  with  omniscience,  and  yet,  in  many  a  passage, 
1  In  his  Homerische  Theologie. 


206  GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

are  ignorant  of  matters  which  most  intimately  concern  them.  The 
gods  are  omnipotent,  and  yet  Zeus  himself  is  bound  with  fetters, 
from  which  he  is  released  only  by  the  hundred -handed  Briareus. 
The  gods  are  constituted  as  just  and  holy  in  the  government  of 
the  world,  and  invariably  visiting  punishment  upon  all  wrong- 
doing ;  but  in  many  instances  they  are  patrons  of  the  worst  crimes 
known  among  men,  and  are  themselves  the  subjects  of  the  fiercest 
and  most  malevolent  human  passions;  and,  indeed,  in  the  Homeric 
conception  itself  of  the  Deity,  there  is  an  utter  absence  of  that 
awful  holiness  which  inheres  in  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  idea  of 
God.  The  gods  also  require  and  accept  the  worship  of  men,  and 
their  favor  is  propitiated  and  their  displeasure  deprecated  by  prayer 
and  sacrifice ;  in  all  the  events  and  occasions  of  life,  alike  the  small- 
est and  the  greatest,  the  pious  Greek  approaches  his  God  in  prayer, 
and  in  conscious  dependence  bows  to  the  divine  behests ;  but  yet 
his  gods  are  implacable  to  the  last  degree,  and  pursue  the  offender 
with  the  most  relentless  hatred ;  and  nothing  is  so  drearily  indistinct 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  Greek  worshiper  as  the  prospect  of 
forgiveness  and  reconciliation.  Human  sin  is  certain,  certain  its 
punishment ;  but  wholly  uncertain,  dependent  on  the  arbitrary 
will  of  his  gods,  is  its  forgiveness ;  human  life  is  a  life  without 
any  assurance  of  divine  favor.1 

However  we  may  differ  from  Mr.  Gladstone  in  respect  to  the 
origin  of  the  Homeric  system,  we  can  heartily  accept  his  state- 
ment of  the  lesson  which  its  history  teaches,  that  it  shows  "  the 
total  inability  of  our  race,  even  when  at  its  maximum  of  power, 
to  solve  for  ourselves  the  problems  of  our  destiny ;  to  extract  for 
ourselves  the  sting  from  care,  from  sorrow,  and  above  all  from 
death."  By  revealing  this  inability,  the  Greek  religion  and  all 
other  religions  of  pagan  antiquity  have  each  proved  themselves, 
even  as  the  written  law  of  the  Jews,  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  men 
to  Christ :  they  all  belong,  with  Judaism  itself,  to  a  continuous 
development  of  preparation  for  the  coming  into  the  world,  in  the 
fullness  of  time.,  of  Him  who  was  the  desire  of  all  nations,  for  the 
coming  of  Christianity  as  the  one  true  and  universal  religion,  to 
meet  and  satisfy  the  wants  of  human  nature  as  they  appear  in  all 
nations  and  in  all  times.  It  is  a  remark  of  St.  Augustine,  often 
quoted  by  Miiller,  that  there  is  no  religion  which  does  not  con- 
tain some  element  of  truth.  We  may  accept,  also,  when  it  is 
rightly  understood,  that  paradox  of  the  same  father  of  the  church, 
1  Nagelsbach,  p.  355. 


GLADSTONE'S  JUVENTUS  MUNDL  207 

that  "  what  is  now  called  the  Christian  religion  has  existed  among 
the  ancients,  and  was  not  absent  from  the  beginning  of  the  human 
race  until  Christ  came  in  the  flesh ;  from  which  time  the  true  reli- 
gion which  existed  already  began  to  be  called  Christian."  The 
religious  aspirations  of  the  heathen  world,  however  unsatisfied, 
however  misguided,  the  glimmerings  of  truth  that  appear  amid  the 
manifold  errors  of  that  religion,  all  their  observances  of  worship 
in  their  best  and  in  their  worst  forms,  why  are  they  not  "  uncon- 
scious prophecies "  of  the  human  soul  under  the  teachings  of 
nature,  even  as  the  written  prophecies  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures, 
under  the  teachings  of  revelation,  of  the  grace  and  truth  to  come 
by  Jesus  Christ  for  the  redemption  of  universal  man  ?  Such  a 
view  at  once  gives  true  significance  to  the  pagan  religions,  and 
fixes  their  true  relation  to  the  Christian,  and  in  turn  the  relation 
of  the  Christian  religion  to  them.  Christianity  is  not  clearly 
discovered  to  be  a  universal  religion  till  all  the  natural  religions 
are  seen  to  be  preparatory  to  it,  till  all  those  religions  which 
could  not  have  existed  but  for  man's  religious  nature,  allied  to 
God  and  bound  to  Him  even  amid  all  its  errors,  are  recognized 
along  with  Judaism  as  presupposing  the  New  Testament  revela- 
tion. Christ  is  seen  as  the  divine  deliverer  of  mankind  only  as 
his  redemptive  work  runs  through  all  human  history,  "one  in- 
creasing purpose  running  through  the  ages." 


ROME  AND  THE  ROMANS  OF  THE  TIME  OF 
HORACE. 

WRITTEN  FOR  THE   FRIDAY  CLUB,  DECEMBER  16,  1870,  ALSO    USED 
AS   COLLEGE   LECTURES. 

THE  late  Dean  Milman  declared  that  no  one  could  know  any- 
thing of  Rome  or  of  the  Roman  mind  and  manners  who  was  not 
profoundly  versed  in  Horace.  The  remark  is  so  true  that  one 
may  well  be  warranted  in  making  Horace's  writings  the  point  of 
departure  for  a  view  of  the  great  city  and  of  the  life  of  its  peo- 
ple in  those  eventful  times  to  which  his  career  belonged  ;  so  fitted 
was  he  both  by  his  genius  and  culture  and  by  his  fortunate  posi- 
tion in  Roman  society  for  the  task  which  he  executed  of  seizing 
and  interpreting  in  his  poetry  all  that  is  characteristic  in  Augus- 
tan Rome.  By  nature  and  by  fondest  habit  he  was  a  close  ob- 
server of  the  ways  of  men.  He  had  also  the  amplest  means  of 
observation  through  his  connection,  by  his  origin,  with  the  hum- 
blest orders  of  Roman  society,  and,  by  his  rise,  with  the  highest. 
He  was  the  son  of  a  freed  man  and  the  intimate  friend  of  the 
emperor  and  his  prime  minister  Maecenas ;  he  was  vexed  with  no 
aspiring  that  interfered  with  simple  tastes  and  moderate  desires 
and  a  cherished  sense  of  personal  independence.  He  had  no 
cares  of  family,  politics,  or  profession ;  neither  poverty  nor  riches 
was  given  him,  but  that  golden  mean  he  loved  and  sung  so  well, 
that  brought  him  neither  trouble  nor  anxiety.  It  was  by  such 
means  as  these  that  Horace  was  qualified  at  once  to  study  and  to 
teach  his  age,  to  apprehend  and  to  represent  it,  to  catch  with  a 
poet's  insight  its  living  manners  as  they  rose  before  him,  and  with 
a  poet's  art  to  set  them  in  imperishable  literary  forms. 

It  is  in  this  attitude  of  Horace  towards  his  country  and  his  age, 
in  his  clear  and  genial  vision  and  knowledge  of  the  Rome  and  the 
Romans  of  the  Augustan  period,  of  the  great  city  itself  in  all  its 
parts,  and  of  all  the  life  of  its  people,  social,  political,  literary, 
and  moral,  and  in  his  ability  to  embody  all  that  he  saw  and  knew 
in  such  perfect  forms  of  poetic  expression ;  in  these  it  is  that  we 
find  his  chief  distinction  as  a  writer,  and  the  secret  of  his  fame 


ROME   IN  THE  TIME  OF   HORACE.  209 

and  influence.  Of  his  distinctive  poetic  qualities  in  his  lyrics, 
satires,  and  epistles  I  have  spoken  in  the  "  Life  of  Horace,"  in  the 
edition  we  have  been  using,  and  upon  these  I  do  not  purpose  now 
to  dwell.  In  such  lectures  as  I  wish  to  give  you  in  a  review  of 
Horace,  we  need  specially  to  observe,  that  his  poetry,  like  all  gen- 
uine poetry,  had  its  roots  in  the  life  of  its  time  and  grew  up  under 
its  skies  and  in  its  air  and  light,  and  thus  it  represents  what  is 
real  and  permanent  in  the  ideas  and  events  and  characters  of  that 
time,  and  thus  it  is  that  the  writer  is  a  truly  national  and  Roman 
poet.  As  you  read  you  catch  glimpses  of  the  city,  the  yellow 
Tiber,  with  its  plains  on  either  side  and  the  hills  that  bound 
them,  the  Capitol  and  its  neighboring  heights,  the  Palatine  and 
Esquiline  ;  the  Forum  with  its  Sacred  Way,  and  the  triumphal 
procession  coming  down  into  it  from  the  Velia,  and  all  the  town 
following  with  their  "  lo  Triumphe's ; "  you  see  the  thronged 
Campus  Martius,  too,  on  election  day,  the  noisy  party-candidates 
putting  forth  their  claims  to  office ;  and  there,  too,  quite  aside, 
the  brave,  virtuous  men,  strangers  to  defeat,  the  real  consuls  of 
all  years.  You  visit  the  temples  and  hear  the  prayers  there 
offered  ;  also  the  places  of  amusement,  the  Theatre  of  Pompeius, 
where  you  may,  perhaps,  regret  the  absence  of  Pollio  with  his 
muse  of  severe  tragedy,  but  yet  may  add  "  a  good  part  of  your 
voice  "  to  the  rounds  of  applause  which  greet  Maecenas  after  his 
illness ;  you  may  stroll  out  to  the  Circus  with  the  lovers  of  the 
races,  and  strain  your  eyes  on  the  swift  hot-wheeled  chariots  chas- 
ing one  another  through  the  dust  of  the  course,  and  at  last  you 
may  toss  up  your  caps  for  the  winners  of  the  "  ennobling  palm." 
Or  you  may  share  with  the  poet  the  life  of  Roman  interiors, 
whether  the  poor  man's  home,  where  are  plain  meals  but  no  hang- 
ings or  purple ;  or  the  rich  man's  palace,  where  you  see  costly 
marbles  and  paneled  ceilings  of  ivory  or  gold,  but  yet  tables  laden 
with  cloying  stores,  and  black  imps  of  fretting  care  flying  about 
the  ceiling.  But  not  alone  these  places  and  outward  scenes  of 
Rome  may  you  see  in  Horace's  poetry ;  you  come  to  know  also 
the  people  themselves,  the  Romans  of  all  classes,  and  in  all  their 
occupations,  whether  peaceful  or  warlike ;  scholars  and  men  of 
letters,  like  Virgil,  and  Varus,  and  Pollio,  in  their  studies ;  states- 
men in  the  senate ;  orators  on  the  rostra ;  advocates  hurrying  to 
meet  cases  at  the  courts ;  or  counselors  at  law  rudely  called  up  at 
cock-crowing  by  impatient  clients  banging  at  their  doors.  Espe- 
cially do  you  become  conversant  with  the  great  political  events  of 


210  ROME   IN   THE  TIME   OF  HORACE. 

the  time  and  the  great  actors  in  them,  whether  on  the  republi- 
can or  the  imperial  side  ;  the  recent  civil  wars,  —  so  recent  that 
the  fires  of  partisan  passion,  not  yet  extinct,  may  soon  break 
forth  from  the  ashes  which  only  seem  to  bury  them ;  —  these,  with 
their  sights  and  sounds,  are  all  there  in  the  poet's  graphic  verse ; 
the  murmur  of  martial  horns,  the  glitter  of  arms,  the  fleeing 
horses,  the  panic-stricken  horsemen,  and  the  chiefs  soiled  with  no 
inglorious  dust.  The  battles  are  fought  there  before  you  with 
their  decisive,  world-wide  issues,  in  all  of  them,  like  that  at  Phi- 
lippi,  the  old  republic  doomed  and  fallen  in  spite  of  the  desperate 
valor  of  its  defenders,  and  the  empire  as  the  necessary  outcome, 
risen  and  established,  with  Octavian,  the  heaven-sent  Mercury, 
its  august  ruler. 

With  this  general  view  of  the  relation  of  the  poet  Horace  to  his 
time,  I  propose  to  give  you  in  some  lectures,  Rome  and  the  Ro- 
mans as  he  has  represented  them ;  the  city  in  its  extent,  its  exter- 
nal appearance  in  its  public  works,  its  chief  buildings,  public  and 
private,  and  then  the  population  and  its  different  classes,  and  es- 
pecially the  Roman  society,  which  is  set  before  us  in  the  Horatian 
poetry. 

The  Rome  in  which  Horace  lived,  and  which  now  lives  in  his 
poetry,  had  in  its  extent  far  outgrown  the  ancient  limits  of  the 
Servian  walls ;  these  walls,  indeed,  then  belonged  as  truly  to  the 
antiquities  of  the  city  as  at  the  present  day,  and  their  line  could 
scarcely  be  traced  for  the  buildings  that  inclosed  and  concealed 
them  through  their  entire  course.  For  the  size  and  extent  of  the 
Augustan  city  we  have  no  immediate  data,  except  those  which 
belong  to  the  division  of  its  area  into  fourteen  regions  or  wards, 
which  was  instituted  by  the  emperor  for  municipal  purposes.  A 
description  of  the  municipal  division,  which  has  come  down  to  us 
in  the  ancient  document  called  the  "  Curiosum  Urbis,"  contains  a 
distinct  enumeration  of  each  of  the  fourteen  regions,  with  its  cir- 
cumference in  feet,  a  list  of  the  principal  buildings  in  each,  so 
arranged  as  to  describe  its  circuit,  together  with  much  curious 
information,  such  as  the  number  of  public  establishments,  the 
granaries,  the  public  baths,  the  heads  of  water  for  the  aqueducts, 
and  also  the  number  in  each  region  of  the  private  dwelling-houses. 
Not  only  do  the  figures  given  under  these  heads  all  show  how  im- 
mensely the  Rome  of  the  age  of  Augustus  had  extended  beyond 
the  ancient  boundaries,  but  also  the  enumeration  of  the  principal 
buildings  in  each  region,  which  is  made  to  mark  its  topographical 


ROME  IN  THE  TIME   OF  HORACE.  211 

limits,  yields  an  approximate  view  of  its  actual  extent.  These 
buildings  are  for  the  most  part  familiar  ones,  and  their  sites  dis- 
tinctly known,  and  the  line  which  they  describe  has  been  made 
the  subject  of  topographical  study,  and  a  plan  of  the  city  has  been 
constructed  on  the  basis  of  their  respective  limits,  by  which  the 
extent  of  the  whole  city  has  been  reached.  It  has  thus  been  made 
clear  that  the  area  of  the  city  in  the  time  of  Augustus  was  sub- 
stantially the  same  as  in  the  reign  of  Vespasian,  when  its  circuit 
was  exactly  measured ;  and  as  in  Aurelian's  reign,  when  the  new 
walls  were  begun.  A  passage  in  Pliny,  which  furnishes  a  very 
particular  account  of  Vespasian's  survey,  fixes  the  circumference 
of  the  city,  as  ascertained  by  measurement,  at  13£  miles.  As  this 
measure  marks  the  extent  of  the  outer  line  of  the  buildings  of  the 
city,  it  agrees  sufficiently  well  with  the  circumference  of  the  Au- 
relian  and  of  the  present  walls.  The  line  of  the  Augustan  regions 
was  probably  adopted  by  Aurelian  when  he  conceived  the  purpose, 
which  revealed  at  once  his  own  military  greatness  and  the  weak- 
ness of  his  empire,  of  inclosing  the  city  with  a  new  line  of  forti- 
fied walls.  For  nearly  eight  centuries  (507  B.  c.  to  270  A.  D.) 
Rome  had  been  a  city  without  walls,  but  during  all  these  centu- 
ries, which  include  the  periods  of  the  rising  and  ever-extending 
greatness  of  the  republic,  and  the  Augustan  era  of  the  imperial 
universal  dominion,  the  capital  had  never  needed  any  outward 
defense.  Hannibal  had  been  the  last  enemy  that  ever  approached 
it,  and  since  the  battle  of  Zama,  Rome  had  never  known  any  ap- 
prehension of  foreign  invasion.  But  now  that  the  imperial  city 
began  to  be  in  peril  from  the  ever-nearing  approach  of  the  Ger- 
man and  other  northern  nations,  it  needed  the  protection  of  forti- 
fied walls.  The  walls  were  commenced  in  271,  and  rapidly  carried 
forward  during  the  remaining  years  of  Aurelian's  reign ;  but  they 
were  completed  by  Probus  in  276.  This  period  of  five  years  is 
certainly  a  short  one  for  so  gigantic  a  work,  and  undoubtedly  it 
was  carried  through  with  undue  haste  ;  and  hence,  125  years  later, 
in  the  reign  of  Honorius  (395—425),  they  were  thoroughly  re- 
paired, and  in  some  parts  constructed  anew,  though  without  any 
change  of  the  line  which  they  followed.  Different  ancient  writers 
have  described  the  Aurelian  walls,  but  only  one,  Vopiscus  (300 
A.  D.),  in  his  Life  of  Aurelian,  has  made  distinct  mention  of  their 
extent,  which  he  fixes,  if  we  take  his  words  in  their  usual  sense, 
at  the  fabulous  estimate  of  about  fifty  miles  in  circumference. 
Gibbon,  in  his  eleventh  chapter,  speaks  of  this  estimate  as  only 


212  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

the  result  of  popular  exaggeration,  and  among  eminent  modern 
writers  it  has  found  no  defender  except  the  Roman  topographer 
Nibby.  The  numerals  of  Vopiscus  were  long  a  vexed  question 
with  the  critics,  but  at  length  the  Italian  writer,  Piale,  hit  upon 
the  happy  conjecture  that  the  word  feet  (pedum)  should  be  sup- 
plied with  the  numerals  quinquaginta  millia,  or  50,000,  instead 
of  the  usual  word  paces,  or  passuum,  so  that  the  passage  would 
read  50,000  feet,  or  between  10  and  11  miles,  a  very  probable 
estimate,  and  sufficiently  near  the  result  of  Vespasian's  measure- 
ment, as  well  as  the  extent  of  the  present  walls  of  Rome.  The 
topographers  had,  however,  still  another  difficulty  to  settle  in  the 
account,  given  by  Olympiodorus,  of  another  measurement  of  the 
geometrician  Ammon,  made  in  the  reign  of  Honorius,  just  before 
the  first  invasion  of  the  Goths  in  A.  D.  408.  This  measurement 
would  yield,  according  to  the  received  reading  of  the  text,  a  cir- 
cuit for  the  city  of  twenty-one  miles ;  but  this,  too,  is  a  number 
quite  improbable  for  belief  and  acceptance.  Gibbon  has,  however, 
adopted  it  in  two  passages,  though  in  a  third  he  has  given,  with- 
out alluding  to  the  preceding  ones,  another  estimate,  and  undoubt- 
edly the  true  one,  of  about  twelve  miles.  Most  ingeniously  has 
the  text  of  Olympiodorus  been  conjecturally  emended  by  Nibby. 
The  number  is  given  in  the  text,  as  often,  by  letters  of  the  Greek 
alphabet,  /ca,  K  standing  for  20  and  a  for  1.  Nibby  conjectures  i, 
which  stands  for  10,  instead  of  K,  and  so  reads  ta,  or  11,  and  so 
gains  eleven  miles  for  the  result  of  the  Ammonian  measurement, 
substantially  the  same  result  as  that  gained  by  the  emended  read- 
ing of  Vopiscus.  From  the  reign  of  Honorius  down  to  the  pres- 
ent, with  the  exception  of  the  Vatican  and  St.  Peter's,  there  has 
been  no  essential  change  in  the  line  of  Roman  walls ;  and  as  the 
line  of  the  Aurelian  walls  was  coincident  with  the  outer  limits 
of  the  Augustan  regions,  we  can  have  no  doubt  that  the  Rome  of 
the  Augustan  age  had  so  far  outgrown  the  old  limits  of  the  repub- 
lic as  to  reach,  with  its  streets  and  buildings,  a  circumference  of 
twelve  miles. 

In  its  external  appearance,  and  in  the  splendor  of  its  public 
and  private  buildings,  the  city  underwent  far  greater  changes  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Augustus.  Rome  was  not,  indeed,  wanting  in 
earlier  times  in  great  public  works,  as  the  Cloacae,  the  Aqueducts, 
and  the  great  highways ;  but  these,  and  such  as  these,  ministered, 
agreeably  to  the  spirit  of  these  times,  more  to  utility  than  to  adorn- 
ment ;  and  even  these,  with  the  exception  of  the  first,  were  con- 


ROME   IN  THE   TIME   OF  HORACE.  213 

structed  on  a  more  magnificent  basis  in  the  earlier  periods  of  the 
empire.  The  most  comprehensive  fact  on  this  subject  is  contained 
in  the  well-known  remark  of  Augustus  (Sueton.,  Vita),  that  he 
found  Rome  a  city  of  brick,1  and  left  it  one  of  marble.  This  is 
hardly  an  exaggeration.  By  the  large  outlays  of  Augustus,  and 
under  his  auspices  by  the  enterprise  and  skill  of  Agrippa  and 
other  distinguished  men,  the  work  of  improving  and  adorning  the 
city  went  on  with  inconceivable  rapidity.  Existing  public  works 
were  extended,  and  new  ones  constructed  on  a  larger  and  grander 
scale ;  magnificent  temples,  halls,  and  political  edifices  arose  on 
every  side,  and  far  beyond  the  earlier  boundaries ;  and  during  the 
forty  years'  peaceful  rule  of  Augustus,  a  new  Rome  gradually 
grew  up,  which  far  surpassed  in  external  splendor  the  seven-hilled 
city  of  the  republic.  Prominent  among  these  improvements  was 
the  new  Forum,  called  the  Forum  of  Augustus.  In  the  war  with 
Brutus  and  Cassius,  Augustus  had  vowed  that  if  crowned  with 
victory  he  would  build  a  temple  in  honor  of  Mars  Ultor.  With 
the  erection  of  this  temple,  which  is  reckoned  by  Pliny  among  the 
architectural  wonders  of  the  world,  Augustus  united  the  plan  of  a 
new  Forum,  the  Roman  Forum  and  the  Julian  being  now  inade- 
quate to  the  wants  of  the  city.  At  great  expense  in  the  purchase 
of  private  estates,  space  was  gained  on  either  side  of  the  Temple 
of  Mars,  and  here  were  erected  two  semicircular  lines  of  porticoes, 
as  places  of  exchange  and  of  public  business,  which  were  adorned 
with  statues  of  distinguished  Romans,  and  with  other  works  of 
art.  The  whole  was  surrounded  with  a  high  wall,  so  that,  though 
in  the  heart  of  the  city,  it  afforded  a  quiet  place  for  the  transac- 
tion of  business.  Other  temples  erected  by  Augustus  were  those 
of  Jupiter  Tonans,  towards  the  foot  of  the  Capitol,  and  that  of 
Quirinus,  on  the  Quirinal,  the  latter  adorned  with  a  double  row 
of  seventy-six  columns.  Still  another  was  the  celebrated  Temple 
of  Apollo,  on  the  Palatine,  which  was  built  of  white  marble,  and 
surrounded  with  columns  of  the  marble  of  Numidia.  Here  was 
deposited  the  Palatine  library,  founded  by  Augustus.  The  dedi- 
cation of  this  temple  Horace  commemorated  by  one  of  his  most 
characteristic  odes  (Odes,  I.  31,  "  Quid  dedicatum,"  etc.).  During 
the  aedileship  of  Agrippa  immense  sums  were  expended  upon 
public  works,  both  useful  and  ornamental.  The  old  aqueducts, 
four  in  number,  were  repaired,  and  three  new  ones  were  built,  two 

1  That  is,  peperino  and  tufa.     In  the  time  of  Augustus  burnt  brick  was  not 
in  use,  but  peperino  in  opus  quadratum,  and  tufa  in  opus  reticulatum. 


214  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

of  which,  the  Aqua  Virgo  and  the  Aqua  Marcia,  are  still  in  use 
in  modern  Home.  In  connection  with  these  there  were  erected 
massive  distributing  reservoirs,  one  hundred  and  thirty  in  num- 
ber, which  were  adorned  with  columns  and  statues  executed  in 
the  highest  style  of  art;  of  the  columns  there  were  four  hun- 
dred, all  of  marble,  and  of  the  statues  three  hundred,  some  of 
bronze  and  others  of  marble.  The  public  squares  all  over  the 
city  were  furnished  with  a  great  variety  of  ponds  or  heads  of 
water  called  lacus,  and  jets,  salientes ;  in  all  there  were  seven 
hundred  lacus  and  one  hundred  and  five  salientes.  The  public 
places  were  also  adorned  with  triumphal  arches  and  Egyptian  obe- 
lisks ;  two  of  the  latter  still  remain  and  adorn  two  of  the  finest 
squares  of  modern  Rome,  one  the  Piazza  del  Popolo,  and  the 
other  the  Monte  Citorio.  The  new  buildings  for  the  amusement 
of  the  people  far  surpassed  in  splendor  those  of  the  republican 
period.  Of  these  may  be  mentioned  the  Amphitheatre  of  Tau- 
rus, the  Theatre  of  Balbus,  and  the  Theatre  of  Marcellus,  all  of 
them  magnificent  stone  buildings,  erected  in  the  Campus  Martius. 
Ruins  of  the  last  edifice  are  discerned,  as  is  well  known,  in  one  of 
the  meanest  quarters  of  the  modern  city,  and  the  gray,  worn 
arches  of  the  lower  story  now  serve  the  ignoble  purpose  of  front- 
ing the  dirty  shops  of  locksmiths  and  other  artisans.  Other  fine 
monuments  of  the  Augustan  time,  which  once  adorned  this  part 
of  the  city,  have  come  to  like  ignoble  uses.  Witness  the  grand 
Mausoleum  of  Augustus,  whose  massive  walls,  within  which  once 
reposed  the  remains  of  Augustus  and  others  of  the  imperial  fam- 
ily, consecrated  once  by  the  ashes  of  the  young  Marcellus,  and 
spite  of  all  its  subsequent  uses,  consecrated  ever  by  the  verse  of 
Virgil,  now  serve  for  the  exhibition  of  puppet-shows  and  tight- 
rope dancers !  These  and  other  buildings  of  the  Augustan  age 
stood  upon  the  Campus  Martius ;  and  it  is  indeed  the  new  appear- 
ance which  this  entire  region  gradually  assumed  that  most  distin- 
guishes, in  its  outward  aspect,  Augustan  Rome  from  the  Rome  of 
the  Commonwealth.  Formerly  a  vast  open  space  for  the  meet- 
ings of  the  Centuriate  Comitia,  and  for  military  and  gymnastic 
exercises,  it  was  now  changed,  under  the  creative  influence  of  art, 
to  a  grand  assemblage  of  architectural  monuments  devoted  to  the 
worship  of  the  gods,  to  public  business,  and  to  the  comforts  and 
amusements  of  the  people.  To  allude  to  some  of  these  which  have 
not  been  mentioned,  here  were  erected  the  Thermae,  or  Baths  of 
Agrippa,  the  first  of  a  series  of  magnificent  establishments  belong- 


ROME  IN  THE   TIME   OF   HORACE.  215 

ing  to  the  time  of  the  emperors.  Intended  from  the  first  to  fur- 
nish to  the  whole  population  the  luxuries  and  diversions  enjoyed 
by  the  rich  in  their  own  houses,  these  baths  were  built  on  an  im- 
mense scale,  and  contained  not  only  every  convenience  for  bath- 
ing, but  also,  by  means  of  gymnasia,  porticoes,  reading-rooms,  and 
libraries,  every  facility  for  the  tastes  of  the  people,  physical,  social, 
and  intellectual.  Horace  has  a  jest  in  one  of  his  satires  at  the 
expense  of  some  of  the  conceited  poets  who  go  to  the  baths  to 
recite  their  poems,  because  there  they  hope  to  find  a  large  audi- 
ence, and  also  because  the  resonance  of  the  vaulted  ceilings  de- 
lights their  vanity.  They  were  built  in  the  most  superb  style, 
enriched  within  with  precious  marbles  and  paintings,  and  in  the 
areas  without  adorned  and  refreshed  with  fountains  and  shaded 
walks.  Some  remains  of  these  baths  are  extant,  but  the  extensive 
ruins  of  the  Thermse  of  later  emperors  give  us  definite  concep- 
tions of  the  nature  and  extent  of  these  establishments.  Close  by 
the  Baths  of  Agrippa  was  erected,  and  is  still  standing,  the  finest 
of  all  these  Augustan  monuments,  the  Pantheon,  a  temple  conse- 
crated to  Mars  and  Venus,  and  probably  also  meant  to  be  sacred 
to  all  the  successive  Divi  of  the  Julian  family.  Next  to  its  own 
beauty,  it  is  doubtless  the  wise  policy  of  the  Roman  church  to 
which  the  world  is  indebted  for  the  preservation  of  this  pagan 
temple  ;  for  its  consecration  as  a  Christian  church,  in  608,  by  Bon- 
iface IV.,  then  Bishop  of  Rome,  is  the  chief  circumstance  which 
has  kept  it  from  destruction  during  all  the  changes  of  time  in  this 
ever-changing  part  of  the  city.  Yet  not  even  this  circumstance 
has  saved  it  from  the  plundering  hands  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
rulers.  It  was  one  of  the  latest  of  these  spoliations,  achieved  by 
Urban  VIII.,  who  carried  off  from  it  400,000  pounds  of  bronze  to 
adorn  his  family's  palace  of  the  Barberiiii,  that  elicited  from  the 
Roman  Pasquin  one  of  his  best  pasquinades  :  — 

"  Quod  non  fecere  Barbari,  fecere  Barberini." 

Let  me  now  add  to  this  account  of  the  public  buildings  of 
Augustan  Rome  a  brief  mention  of  the  private  houses  of  this 
period.  In  these,  too,  both  in  extent  and  costliness,  there  was 
a  great  advance  upon  the  architecture  of  the  republic.  Till 
towards  the  close  of  republican  times,  the  Roman  dwelling-houses 
were  small,  and  made  of  wood  or  of  brick,  erected  upon  a  stone 
foundation.  In  one  of  Horace's  odes,  in  which  the  poet  laments 
the  prevailing  luxury,  when  the  estates  of.  the  rich  left  but  few 


216  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

acres  for  the  plow,  and  their  plane-trees  and  flower  gardens 
supplanted  the  elms  and  the  olive-grounds,  he  dwells  especially 
upon  the  smallness  and  simplicity  of  the  homes  of  the  fathers  of 
the  republic.  Then,  he  says,  private  estates  were  small,  the  com- 
mon wealth  was  large,  and  the  laws,  while  they  favored  the 
thatched  roofs  of  private  citizens,  ordered  the  temples  of  the  gods 
to  be  sumptuously  adorned  at  public  cost.  At  about  the  middle 
of  the  seventh  century  of  the  city  the  orator  Crassus  built  a 
house  on  the  Palatine,  which  was  severely  censured  for  its  ex- 
pense, chiefly  because  it  was  adorned  with  marble  columns  (he 
was  nicknamed  by  Brutus  "  the  Palatine  Venus ")  ;  yet  these 
columns  were  only  six  in  number  and  twelve  feet  in  height ;  this 
then  very  extravagant  house  cost  about  840,000.  A  like  censure 
was  passed  upon  the  Consul  Marcus  Lepidus  (B.  c.  78)  for 
using  foreign  marble  in  paving  the  threshold  of  his  home.  But 
thirty  years  later  these  houses  were  inferior  to  at  least  a  hundred 
mansions  in  the  city.  The  house  of  Cicero,  for  instance,  on  the 
Palatine,  cost  about  $140,000,  and  that  of  Claudius,  which  was 
much  larger,  cost  nearly  $600,000.  But  in  the  time  of  Augus- 
tus the  rich  mansions  of  Rome,  as  well  as  the  suburban  villas, 
far  surpassed  in  magnificence  even  these  instances  of  republican 
luxury.  Augustus  himself  led  the  way  in  his  Palatine  house  near 
by  his  temple  of  Apollo.  Here,  near  the  spot  occupied  ages 
before  by  the  humble  abode  of  Romulus,  stood  the  first  Roman 
imperial  residence,  called  first  domus  Caesaris,  then,  by  way  of 
eminence,  domus  Palatina,  or  Palatium,  which  was  followed  by 
a  succession  of  gorgeous  palatial  structures,  which  rose  and  had 
their  brilliant  days  and  fell  in  turn,  and  still  stretch  over  the  hill 
in  massive  ruins,  but  which,  by  their  grandeur,  have  passed  down 
to  the  language  of  wellnigh  every  civilized  nation  the  fitting 
word  for  the  dwellings  of  nobles,  and  kings,  and  emperors.  An- 
other princely  Roman  house,  and  more  familiar  to  the  writings  as 
to  the  person  of  Horace,  was  the  house  of  Maecenas.  This,  as 
Horace  often  reminds  us,  stood  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Esqui- 
liiie  hill.  The  grounds  of  the  estate  covered  a  part  of  the  site  of 
the  former  Servian  walls,  and  stretched  out  to  the  east  and  south 
across  the  plain  of  the  Esquiline.  Formerly  the  gloomy  burial- 
places  (Sat.  I.  8,  14-16)  of  slaves  and  of  the  poorest  classes  of 
citizens,  they  were  now  changed  by  the  wealth  and  taste  of  Maece- 
nas into  an  extensive  and  elegant  park,  laid  out  with  walks  and 
gardens,  and  adorned  with  fountains  and  statuary.  On  one  of 


ROME  IN   THE  TIME  OF  HORACE.  217 

the  highest  points  was  erected  the  palace,  one  part  arising  above 
the  rest,  in  tower-like  form  and  in  several  stories,  in  Horatian 
phrase  massive  and  nearing  the  clouds  (Odes  III.  29,  10),  and 
commanding  a  view  of  the  whole  city,  and  especially  of  the  plain 
of  the  Campagna,  and  over  and  beyond  this,  of  Tibur  and  Tuscu- 
lum,  and  the  entire  line  of  delightful  hills  which  bound  the  hori- 
zon to  the  east  of  Rome.  The  way  up  to  this  place  was  a  well- 
worn  one  to  the  often  hastening  feet  of  Horace,  and  the  interior 
was  consecrated  in  his  own  mind,  as  well  as  in  the  minds  of  Virgil 
and  Varius  and  the  other  choice  spirits  that  formed  the  circle  of 
Maecenas,  to  the  most  elevated  and  cherished  associations  of  art,  let- 
ters, friendship,  and  social  intercourse.  It  is  probable  that  some 
of  the  ruined  walls  and  chambers  which  still  cover  this  part  of  the 
Esquiline  are  remains  of  this  classic  residence ;  and  the  traveler, 
as  he  gazes  upon  the  massive  ruins,  gladly  believes  that  he  is 
standing  within  the  spaces  once  graced  by  the  presence  of  Virgil 
and  Horace  and  their  brother  poets  and  men  of  letters  and  their 
common  friend  and  princely  patron  Maecenas. 

What  has  now  been  said  of  the  private  houses  of  Rome  illus- 
trates only  what  were  called  the  dormis,  the  separate  mansions  of 
the  richer  citizens.  These,  however,  though  they  formed  the 
court  parts  of  the  city,  crowning  the  summits  of  the  hills,  yet 
formed  the  homes  of  but  a  small  portion  of  the  population.  But 
in  the  lower  districts,  such  as  the  Subura  and  the  Velabrurn  and 
along  the  sides  of  the  hills,  were  large  houses,  called  insulce, 
which  were,  however,  not  insulated  single  houses,  but  blocks  of 
houses,  isolated  from  other  similar  blocks  or  other  buildings,  and 
containing  numerous  tenements  for  the  abodes  of  the  poorer 
classes.  These  were  built  in  ordinary  style,  and  many  stories  in 
height,  and  were  rented  by  floors  or  chambers  to  families  or  in- 
dividuals. The  height  of  these  insulce  was  limited  by  Augustus 
to  seventy  feet ;  they  had  often  six  or  seven  stories,  called  tabu- 
lata  or  contignationes,  and  sometimes  even  ten  stories,  and  so 
gave  accommodation  to  a  very  large  number  of  inmates,  many  of 
the  upper  rooms  or  attics  being  used  only  as  lodgings.  The  base- 
ment on  the  street  was  generally  occupied  by  shops  which  had  no 
immediate  connection  with  the  tenements  above,  these  having 
their  own  entrance  by  a  flight  of  steps  from  the  outside.  Of  these 
insulce  there  were  in  the  city  in  Augustus'  time  upwards  of  46,000, 
while  there  were  only  about  1,700  domus.  The  domus,  when 
compared  with  the  dwelling-houses  of  modern  cities,  was  lower 


218  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

and  deeper,  and  covered  a  much  greater  area.  It  generally 
opened  through  the  vestibule  and  the  ostium  or  entry-hall,  into 
the  atrium  or  family  room  and  reception  room  for  guests ;  this 
was  roofed  over  with  the  exception  of  an  open  space  in  the  centre 
called  the  compluvium;  around  the  atrium  were  the  chambers, 
dining-room,  and  other  apartments,  which  varied,  of  course,  with 
the  taste  and  means  of  the  owner.  In  large  houses,  however, 
there  was  beyond  the  atrium  a  similar  hall  called  the  cavum 
cedium  or  heart  of  the  house,  and  still  beyond  sometimes  another 
called  the  peristyle,  which  was  surrounded  by  porticoes  and  had 
a  large  area  open  to  the  sky,  and  planted  with  trees  and  flowers. 
These  domus,  as  they  were  detached  houses  and  often  surrounded 
by  gardens,  must  have  had  a  more  isolated  appearance  than  the 
so-called  insulce  themselves. 

Of  the  population  of  the  city,  the  appearance  of  which  I  have 
now  sketched  only  in  outline,  we  have  estimates  by  different 
writers  who  vary  from  one  another  in  their  figures  not  only  by 
hundreds  and  thousands  but  even  by  millions.  We  have  no 
accounts  of  any  Roman  census  instituted  like  a  modern  one  to 
reach  a  full  numerical  estimate  of  population.  If  Augustus 
among  his  many  wise  measures  had  taken  such  a  census  of  his 
capital,  embracing  children  as  well  as  adults,  women  as  well  as 
men,  and  foreigners  as  well  as  citizens,  and  slaves  as  well  as  free 
Romans,  and  its  results  had  been  preserved,  authenticated  from 
official  sources ;  or  if  any  Augustan  writer  had  recorded  and 
sent  down  to  us  the  actual  number  by  count  only  of  the  slaves 
that  lived  in  Rome  in  his  time,  many  writers  and  their  readers 
would  have  been  spared  some  very  laborious  calculations,  which 
have  started  on  conjectural  premises  and  reached  widely  different 
conclusions,  and  all  alike  uncertain.  Of  these  many  estimates 
the  largest  and  the  smallest  are  easily  set  aside.  One  of  the 
largest,  for  instance,  that  of  Lipsius,  who  sets  down  the  popula- 
tion at  4,000,000,  doubtless  grows  out  of  a  confounding  of  the 
population  of  Italy,  or  perhaps  of  the  empire,  with  that  of  Rome ; 
while  that  of  Dureau  de  la  Malle,  which  gives  the  number  of 
562,000,  and  that  of  Merivale,  who  for  the  most  part  follows  de 
la  Malle,  but  goes  up  to  the  number  of  630,000,  are  not  only  at 
variance  with  some  clearly  established  facts,  but  also  rest  upon 
inferences  from  the  capacity  of  the  area  of  the  city  in  compari- 
son with  that  of  Paris,  which  are  quite  inadmissible.  Bunsen 
and  also  Marquardt  compute  the  population  at  2,000,000 ;  Dyer, 


ROME   IN   THE   TIME   OF  HORACE.  219 

in  Smith's  "  Dictionary  of  Antiquities,"  at  2,045,000  ;  Boeckh,  at 
2,265,000:  Gibbon,  at  1,200,000,  and  Carl  Peter,  in  the  third 
volume  of  his  "  History  of  Rome,"  recently  published,  at  about 
1,250,000.  Of  all  these  the  last  two  seem  to  me  by  far  the  most 
probable.  Singularly  enough  the  only  sure  data  on  this  subject 
are  derived  from  an  inscription  on  the  so-called  Monumentum 
Ancyranum,  or  Monument  of  Ancyra,  a  city  in  Asia  Minor  and 
the  capital  of  the  Province  of  Galatia.  Augustus,  at  the  close  of 
his  life,  wrote  himself  a  record  of  his  chief  acts  during  his  reign, 
and  had  them  inscribed  upon  bronze  tablets  at  Rome  ;  of  this  in- 
scription the  citizens  of  Ancyra  had  a  copy  made  and  cut  upon 
marble  blocks  and  deposited  in  a  temple  dedicated  to  Augustus 
and  Rome.  This  Ancyran  monument  has  fortunately  been  pre- 
served to  modern  times ;  and  the  inscription,  which  was  first 
copied  in  1701,  contains,  among  other  facts,  the  number  of  citi- 
zens to  whom  the  regular  corn  distributions  were  made,  and  also 
on  particular  occasions  largesses  of  money  were  bestowed  by  the 
emperor.  He  mentions  two  occasions  on  which  he  gave  donatives 
to  320,000  of  the  common  people  of  the  city  (plebs  urbana),  two 
others  when  the  donative  was  given  to  200,000,  and  still  another 
when  it  was  granted  to  250,000.  The  largess  was  in  all  these 
instances  limited  to  the  male  population,  but  it  included  on  these 
occasions  children  of  four  years  of  age.  The  mention  of  the 
200,000  is  coupled  with  the  remark  that  this  was  the  number  of 
the  citizens  who  received  the  corn  gratuities.  There  can,  there- 
fore, be  no  doubt  that  this  smaller  number  represents  the  poorer 
citizens,  and  the  larger,  the  entire  population,  male  and  free, 
below  the  senatorian  and  equestrian  ranks.  If,  therefore,  the 
number  be  doubled  to  comprehend  females  and  children,  we 
should  have  640,000  for  the  entire  plebeian  population.  To  this 
sum  must  be  added  at  least  10,000  for  the  senators  and  knights 
with  their  families,  15,000  for  the  military  of  the  city,  and  50,000 
for  the  foreigners,  making  a  sum  total  of  715,000  for  the  free 
population.  In  respect  to  the  number  of  slaves  there  is  more 
difficulty  in  attaining  any  reliable  result.  In  general  we  know 
that  in  the  Augustan  times  the  number  was  immense.  Some 
senatorian  and  equestrian  families  had  hundreds  of  slaves.  Hor- 
ace mentions  one  citizen  who  had  200,  and  in  the  same  passage 
intimates  that  ten  was  a  small  number.  The  praetor  Tillius, 
whom  he  satirizes  for  his  meanness,  goes  to  Tibur  with  only  five  ; 
and  the  poet  himself  is  waited  upon  at  his  bachelor  table  by  three, 


220  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

though  he  was  at  the  time  in  very  humble  circumstances.  From 
the  data  we  have  it  would  be  safe  to  reckon  at  least  ten  slaves  to 
each  person  of  senatorian  and  equestrian  rank,  two  to  each  of  the 
resident  foreigners,  and  one  each  to  the  military  of  the  city.  To 
these  must  be  added  at  least  100,000  in  the  service  of  the  state. 
"We  have  thus  315,000  slaves  for  the  population  exclusive  of  the 
j)lel)s  urbana.  A  common  estimate  has  been  to  reckon  one  slave 
for  each  of  the  commons,  but  this  is  certainly  too  high.  We 
have  indeed  the  record  of  the  estate  of  a  rich  freedman  which  had 
belonging  to  it  4,116  slaves,  but  this  was  doubtless  a  rare  in- 
stance of  wealth  among  even  the  richest  freedmen.  A  large  part 
of  the  common  people  were  dependent  for  their  subsistence  upon 
government  gratuities,  and  these  certainly  had  no  slaves.  Hardly 
more  than  a  third  had  regular  and  sufficient  incomes  of  their  own, 
and  only  these  could  afford  to  keep  slaves.  At  the  lowest  calcu- 
lation there  was  probably  one  slave  for  every  three  of  the  com- 
mon people,  which  would  give  a  proportion  for  the  whole  of  about 
200,000.  This  added  to  the  numbers  already  given  makes  a  total 
of  about  1,200,000  for  the  entire  population,  an  estimate  which 
is  the  smallest  of  the  many  which  have  been  made,  with  the  excep- 
tion only  of  de  la  Malle's  and  Merivale's. 

Let  us  now  come  nearer,  and  try  to  get  some  view  of  the  life 
itself  of  this  great  population  of  Augustan  Rome,  and  of  the 
physical -and  social  condition  and  welfare  of  this  assemblage  of 
human  beings  who  thronged  its  streets  and  public  places  and  lived 
in  its  many  homes  when  Augustus  reigned  and  Horace  wrote. 

We  have  seen  that  the  city  contained  within  the  circuit  of 
about  twelve  miles  more  than  a  million  of  souls.  Of  these  about 
500,000  were  slaves,  upwards  of  700,000  were  citizens,  and  50,000 
foreigners.  The  social  relations  of  these  portions  of  the  popula- 
tion were  of  the  most  diverse  character.  There  was  not  only  the 
broad  contrast  between  the  free  and  the  slaves,  a  large  subject  in 
itself,  which  I  do  not  propose  to  consider,  but  the  free  citizens 
were  parted  from  each  other  by  rank,  and  still  more  by  riches  and 
poverty  to  a  degree  and  extent  which  have  no  parallel  in  modern 
life.  Of  the  free  citizens,  the  higher  or  privileged  classes  were 
the  senators  and  knights.  The  old  patrician  nobility  was  extinct 
in  influence,  well-nigh  in  being.  A  few  ancient  families  still  lin- 
gered, dim  and  faded  figures,  about  the  haunts  of  their  pristine 
glory,  and  at  set  times  in  the  year  went  through  a  dull  round  of 
old  curiate  forms,  out  of  which  all  vitality  had  long  since  van- 


ROME   IN  THE   TIME  OF  HORACE.  221 

ished  ;  but  the  order  itself  had  no  more  significance  either  in  society 
or  in  the  state.  Augustus,  indeed,  from  a  politic  desire  to  adorn 
the  new  regime  with  something  of  the  lustre  of  the  old,  endeav- 
ored to  prop  up  the  declining  fortunes  of  some  of  the  old  families, 
and  to  keep  them  from  extinction ;  but  it  was  all  in  vain  ;  the 
patrician  order  had  no  real  life,  save  the  little  it  drew  from  the 
memories  of  the  republic.  The  new  nobility  was  one  of  no  ante- 
cedents ;  it  was  the  promiscuous  offspring  of  imperial  patronage, 
and  of  cleverness  of  talent  to  discern  and  seize  all  opportunities 
for  gaining  power  and  wealth,  with  no  drawbacks  of  moral  prin- 
ciple to  their  fullest  appropriation.  But  the  senate,  though  de- 
generate in  character  and  power,  still  remained  in  entire  form, 
and  its  members  had  chief  influence  in  society  and  some  acknow- 
ledged share  in  the  government  of  the  state.  In  the  early  years 
of  Augustus's  reign  the  number  of  the  senate  had  risen  to  a  thou- 
sand, but  it  was  soon  reduced  to  six  hundred.  It  had  been  at 
first  the  policy  of  Augustus,  as  of  his  uncle  before  him,  to  degrade 
and  debase  the  senate  for  his  own  surer  elevation,  by  enlarging 
its  ranks  and  filling  them  with  creatures  of  his  own,  who  would 
be  subservient  to  his  ambitious  designs.  It  was  thus  that  for- 
eigners and  common  soldiers  and  freedmen  had  come  to  be  in- 
vested with  the  senatorian  title  and  privileges.  But  when  the 
usurper's  designs  were  accomplished,  and  the  usurpation  had  in- 
sensibly assumed  the  aspect  of  legitimate  government,  Augustus 
took  summary  means  to  dispense  with  these  unworthy  instruments 
of  his  elevation.  In  his  function  of  censor,  he  cleared  the  curia 
of  this  disorderly  rabble  which  had  thronged  it,  the  new  men, 
who  by  their  low  character  and  coarse  life  had  brought  reproach 
and  disgrace  upon  it.  He  also  took  vigorous  measures,  which, 
however,  could  only  be  partially  successful,  to  revive  in  the  sena- 
tors themselves  the  old  dignity  of  bearing  and  lofty  sense  of 
character  which  had  once  been  hereditary  and  well-nigh  innate 
senatorian  qualities,  and  so  to  restore  with  the  people  the  old 
prestige  of  the  body.  He  had  so  far  at  least  a  negative  success, 
that  no  senator  whose  merit  lay  in  suppleness  of  limb  or  a  natural 
turn  for  theatricals  any  longer  ventured  to  dance  and  act  upon 
the  public  stage,  nor  one  whose  forte  was  in  muscle  to  fight  with 
wild  beasts  in  the  arena.  By  similar  stringent  measures  he  also 
purified  the  equestrian  order  by  a  summary  ejectment  from  it  of 
at  least  the  worst  of  its  bad  members,  who  were  beings  of  the 
meaner  quality,  with  no  claim  but  ill-gotten  wealth  to  the  rank 


222  ROME   IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

and  prerogatives  of  a  knight.  Horace  lashes  with  cutting  satire 
one  of  this  class  who  had  often  been  flogged  as  a  slave  with  the 
triumvir's  rods,  but  who  now  haughtily  swept  the  Sacred  Way 
with  his  long  trailing  toga,  and  plowed  his,  thousand  acres,  and 
sat  in  the  equestrian  seats  in  the  theatre.  The  number  of  the 
equites  at  this  time  is  nowhere,  so  far  as  I  know,  exactly  stated. 
Mr.  Dyer  cites  a  passage  from  an  ancient  writer  which  mentions 
"  that  in  the  annual  procession  of  the  knights  to  the  Temple  of 
Castor  they  sometimes  mustered  to  the  number  of  5,000."  But 
we  cannot  be  going  too  high  in  giving  with  Bunsen  and  other 
authorities  the  number  of  10,000  as  the  total  of  the  two  classes  to- 
gether of  the  knights  and  the  senators.  The  property  qualification 
of  the  senatorian  rank  was  fixed  by  Augustus  at  1,200  sestertia, 
about  $48,000  ;  that  of  the  equestrian  was  the  same  as  it  had  always 
been,  400  sestertia,  about  $16,000.  This  sum  was  the  minimum 
for  respectively  the  senatorian  and  the  equestrian  census,  and 
whoever  possessed  this  amount  might  live  in  a  manner  not  un- 
worthy his  rank.  It  is  probable  that  the  number  of  those  whose 
property  did  not  exceed  this  minimum  was  not  a  small  one.  For 
besides  the  general  fact  that  the  very  rich  always  form  the  excep- 
tions in  the  most  favored  circumstances,  it  is  well  known  that 
Augustus  in  many  instances  made  grants  of  money  to  individual 
senators  and  knights  to  keep  their  property  at  the  amount 
required  for  the  census,  and  to  enable  them  to  support  their  rank. 
But  whatever  may  have  been  the  difference  in  the  fortunes  of 
different  senatorian  and  equestrian  families,  there  was  concen- 
trated in  these  two  orders  all  the  enormous  riches  which  had 
flowed  into  Rome  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  The  senate  num- 
bered among  its  members  the  generals  and  the  proconsuls  and 
the  propraetors,  who,  by  the  spoils  of  war,  or  by  the  plunder  of 
rich  provinces,  had  accumulated  immense  fortunes.  The  pay 
itself  of  the  provincial  governors  was  large,  varying  with  the  size 
and  importance  of  the  province  from  100,000  sesterces  up  to  a 
million,  or  from  $4,000  up  to  $40,000.  To  the  equites  belonged 
exclusively  the  privilege  of  farming  the  public  revenues,  a  privi- 
lege which  in  its  legitimate  exercise  was  always  a  fruitful  source 
of  wealth,  but  now,  by  means  of  the  numberless  perverse  devices  of 
extortion  and  oppression,  was  made  a  hundred  fold  more  lucra- 
tive. Into  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  privileged  classes  had 
forced  their  way  the  numerous  parvenus  who  had  taken  advan- 
tage of  the  recent  troubled  times  to  enrich  themselves  by  usury, 


ROME   IN  THE   TIME   OF   HORACE.  223 

and  especially  by  the  reverses  in  families  occasioned  by  the  merci- 
less proscriptions,  had  contrived  to  possess  themselves  of  large 
estates.  The  moneyed  wealth  of  Rome  and  the  landed  property 
of  Italy  were  almost  entirely  in  the  possession  of  these  senatorian 
and  equestrian  families.  It  is  chiefly  the  sentiments  and  tastes 
of  these  two  orders,  their  manners  and  style  of  living,  which  we 
find  delineated  in  the  poetry  of  Horace.  We  gaze  even  to  satiety 
upon  the  pictures  of  their  villas  and  city  mansions,  environed 
without  by  porticoes  and  gardens  and  parks  and  fishponds,  and 
adorned  within  by  costliest  furniture  and  the  finest  works  of  art ; 
but  the  glimpses  that  we  get  of  their  social  life  seldom  suggest 
ideals  of  nobleness  of  character  or  of  dignity  of  manners.  The 
entertainments  which  they  give  to  their  friends  are  only  luxu- 
rious banquets ;  and  these,  though  often  graced  by  the  presence 
of  men  distinguished  for  intellectual  culture  and  tastes,  and  the 
studious  pursuit  and  liberal  encouragement  of  letters,  yet  often 
illustrate  the  prevailing  idolatry  of  wealth  and  its  coarser  sensual 
uses  than  any  social  intercourse  informed  by  intelligence  or  en- 
riched by  kindly  and  generous  feeling  or  enlivened  by  convivial 
wit  and  humor.  Cicero  in  his  delightful  dialogue  on  old  age 
makes  the  elder  Cato  boast  with  an  old  Roman's  national  pride  of 
the  superiority  of  the  Latin  word  for  a  feast  over  the  Greek  one, 
because  the  former  exalted  the  social  element  of  the  occasion,  and 
the  latter  the  sensual ;  the  one  was  a  convivium  where  men  lived 
together  in  rational  intercourse,  the  other  a  symposium  where 
they  were  only  boon  companions  in  eating  and  drinking.  Such  a 
boast  was  only  just  and  true  when  made  of  old  Cato's  Sabine 
suppers,  where  he  feasted  his  rustic  neighbors  with  small  and 
dewy  cups,  and  with  abundant  cheerful  conversation,  protracted 
till  deep  in  the  night ;  but  the  conviviality  of  these  Romans  of 
Horace's  time  was  fully  equal  to  that  of  the  Greeks  of  any  period 
in  its  voluptuous  devotion  to  the  pleasures  of  the  table.  We 
may  hope  that  Horace  and  his  literary  friends  were  wont  to  have 
the  simple  suppers  (mundce  ccenai)  he  so  finely  commends  to 
Maecenas,  under  poor  men's  roofs,  where  were  no  hangings  and 
purple,  where  they  enjoyed  together  their  plain  living  and  high 
thinking  and  cheerful  mirth,  not  at  least  without  the  common 
Sabine  wine  in  moderate  tankards,  and  the  festive  lamb  of  the 
Terminalia,  or  the  tender  kid  snatched  from  the  jaws  of  the  wolf. 
But  the  high-life  feast  of  Nasidienus,  which  the  poet  so  elabo- 
rately describes  in  one  of  his  satires,  at  which  Maecenas  assisted 


224  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

with  several  of  his  friends,  was  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  extrav- 
agant and  interminable  bill  of  fare,  and  the  ruinous  drinking  by 
the  nobler  guests  of  their  host's  costliest  wines.  The  host,  a  low- 
born man  suddenly  become  rich,  his  coarse  nature  and  vulgar 
manners  unchanged  and  more  conspicuous  by  fortune,  was  perhaps 
a  fair  enough  subject  for  Horace's  light  facetious  satire  ;  but  the 
low  jests  which  the  gentlemen  themselves  indulged  in  at  the  host's 
expense  were  a  theme  for  satire  of  a  graver  tone,  which  only  the 
moral  indignation  of  a  Juvenal  could  have  adequately  treated. 
Indeed  at  this  feast,  as  well  as  at  the  festive  scenes  of  the  famous 
journey  to  Brundusium,  one  is  surprised  not  only  at  the  absence 
of  anything  like  genial  entertainment,  but  also  at  the  low  license 
of  manners  displayed ;  poets  are  there,  men  of  letters,  the  choi- 
cest wits,  the  first  Roman  gentlemen  of  the  day ;  but  hardly  a 
good  thing  is  said  by  any  one  in  the  company,  not  a  wise  thought 
or  a  happy  allusion  or  turn  of  festive  wit,  not  a  story  or  a  song 
from  the  guests  to  relieve  the  dull,  heavy  round  of  extravagant, 
luxurious  dishes.  It  seems  most  surprising  of  all  that  Horace 
himself  could  have  been  so  easily  pleased  with  the  scurrilous  con- 
test between  the  two  parasites  of  Maecenas,  which  with  its  one  or 
two  good  hits,  was  after  all  only  a  show  of  low  buffoonery,  turn- 
ing on  the  grossest  personalities.  The  truth  is,  in  spite  of  the 
boast  of  worthy  Cato  Major,  the  chief  thing  at  these  Roman 
suppers  was  eating  and  drinking ;  the  pleasures  were  those  of 
the  senses  indulged  by  the  host  with  an  extravagance  in  providing, 
and  by  the  guests  with  an  excess  in  partaking,  as  unbounded  as 
it  was  wanting  in  reason  and  taste ;  the  palate  and  the  stomach 
were  first  excited  and  whetted,  to  be  afterwards  gratified  and 
gorged,  and  the  most  monstrous  means  taken  to  enjoy  such  a  sup- 
per twice  and  even  thrice  the  same  night,  and  at  last  to  avoid  the 
dangerous  consequences  of  such  multiplied  enjoyment.  This 
inordinate  love  and  pursuit  of  wealth  and  its  coarser  pleasures 
seems  to  have  become  the  engrossing  Roman  passion,  now  that  the 
changed  relations  of  the  empire,  the  old  honors  of  military  and 
civil  life  were  -no  longer  to  be  sought  and  won.  Riches  was 
counted  the  chief  good ;  all  men  hasted  to  be  rich ;  for  the 
attainment  and  enjoyment  of  riches  all  things  were  made  subser- 
vient, all  things  were  sacrificed.  In  a  comprehensive  satiric 
passage  Horace  declares  that  virtue,  fame,  honor,  all  things  divine 
and  human,  are  subject  to  beautiful  riches ;  whoever  has  riches, 
he  shall  be  illustrious,  brave,  just,  wise,  a  king,  whatever  you 


ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE.  225 

please.  Poverty  was  no  longer  an  evil,  it  was  a  positive  reproach. 
To  shun  this  dread  reproach,  the  poet  says  in  another  place,  we  do 
anything  and  suffer  anything,  and  quit  the  path  of  lofty  virtue. 
A  single  illustration  of  the  vicious  devices  engendered  in  such  a 
state  of  society  is  furnished  in  the  burlesque  satire  upon  the  so- 
called  legacy-hunters  (the  hceredipetce,  Sat.  II.  5),  a  base  class  of 
men,  who  had  grown  up  in  the  general  struggle  for  money,  and 
whose  sordid  trade  —  for  a  regular  trade  it  had  come  to  be  — 
consisted  in  courting  the  favor  of  wealthy  people  who  had  no 
children  or  near  relations,  in  the  hope  of  being  made  their  heirs. 
Their  easiest  victims  were  rich  old  men  who  had  arisen  from  a  low 
origin,  and  were  flattered  by  attentions  and  professions  of  esteem ; 
and  these,  to  catch  and  hold,  they  descended  to  the  meanest  arti- 
fices and  shrank  not  from  crime  and  infamy.  These  people  Hor- 
ace classes  with  the  publicans  and  other  sinners  of  the  town,  and 
describes  them  (Epist.  1. 1,  76)  as  hunting  down  avaricious  widows 
with  sweetmeats  and  fruit,  and  catching  old  men  and  sending 
them  to  their  fishponds.  Hard  was  the  task  of  Horace  as  poet- 
priest,  sacerdos  musarum,  to  teach  and  reform  such  a  perverse 
generation ;  to  expose  in  satire  their  vices  and  follies,  and  in  ode 
and  epistle  to  inculcate  temperance  and  sobriety  and  contentment ; 
to  condemn  the  vanity  of  social  ambition  and  the  cares  and  fas- 
tidious discontent  of  wealth ;  and  to  hold  up  the  simplicity  and 
frugality,  the  integrity  and  bright  honor  of  the  forefathers  of  the 
republic  for  the  imitation  of  their  degenerate  sons.  On  dull  ears 
and  duller  hearts  fell  ever  the  ever-returning  refrains  of  his 
exquisite  song,  that  true  happiness  is  in  nothing  outward,  but  only 
in  the  soul ;  that  wisdom  is  better  than  wealth  and  fame,  and 
virtue  the  only  true  good.  No  less  difficult  was  it  for  Augustus 
by  his  personal  influence,  and  by  his  regulations  and  enactments  as 
censor  of  morals  and  as  legislator,  to  eradicate  these  social  evils. 
Well  aware  that  the  elevation  of  the  general  tone  of  society  could 
only  be  secured  by  improvement  in  private  and  family  life,  he 
endeavored  by  precept  and  example  to  restrain  excess  and  culti- 
vate frugal  habits  in  domestic  and  social  living  ;  himself  abste- 
mious and  rigid  in  his  own  diet,  arid  spreading  for  his  guests 
only  a  moderately  furnished  table.  His  sumptuary  laws  exceeded 
in  strictness  all  preceding  ones.  They  allowed  an  expenditure 
of  200  sesterces  (circa  $8.00)  for  a  dinner  party  on  ordinary  days, 
300  ($12.00)  on  holidays,  and  1,000  ($40.00)  for  a  wedding 
feast.  But  these  laws  were  of  no  avail,  and  soon  fell  into  disuse 


226  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

and  oblivion,  like  all  the  earlier  enactments  of  this  class.  Hardly 
more  effectual  was  the  long  legislative  contest  which  the  emperor 
carried  on  against  the  prevailing  licentiousness  of  the  time.  The 
chief  evil  fi'om  which  Roman  morality  and  all  Roman  life  was  suf- 
fering was  the  ever-increasing  celibacy,  and  its  shocking  conse- 
quences in  the  licentious  habits  of  both  sexes,  and  the  frightful 
increase  in  the  number  of  illegitimate  births.  In  the  times  of  the 
civil  wars  it  seemed  to  many  advisable  and  even  a  duty  to  live  with- 
out wife  and  children.  But  even  when  peace  again  established 
security  of  life  and  property,  the  number  continually  increased  of 
those  who  were  averse  to  the  restraints  and  burdens  of  married 
life.  Even  in  republican  times  marriage  was  often  considered  a 
burden  in  itself,  but  at  the  same  time  a  tribute  due  to  the  state 
from  the  citizen.  The  remark  of  Metellus  was  recalled  and  quoted 
in  Augustus'  times,  that  "  if  men  could  be  true  citizens  without 
having  wives  they  would  gladly  be  rid  of  the  burden."  But  in 
these  times,  when  sacrifices  of  any  kind  for  the  blessing  of  citizen- 
ship were  very  rare  even  as  they  were  rarely  deserved,  the  number 
of  marriages  was  ever  on  the  decrease.  Augustus  carried  through 
several  laws  which  aimed  to  encourage  matrimony  by  penalties 
upon  the  unmarried  and  rewards  to  the  married,  and  also  to  limit 
divorces.  The  extent  of  evils  which  were  suffered  from  the  lax 
morals  of  the  time  is  easiest  discovered  by  the  provisions  of  the 
laws.  All  Romans  were  required  to  marry,  and  to  marry  to  raise 
children  to  the  state ;  the  requirement  extending  with  men  to  the 
sixtieth  year,  and  with  women  to  the  fiftieth.  Whoever  violated 
the  law  suffered  certain  penalties,  which  bore,  however,  harder 
upon  the  unmarried  than  upon  the  married  who  were  without  chil- 
dren. No  unmarried  person  was  legally  capable  of  receiving  an 
inheritance  or  legacy,  and  a  married  person  without  children  could 
receive  one  half  of  what  was  willed  to  him ;  in  case  there  were  no 
other  heirs,  the  property  went  to  the  state.  If  the  person  were  un- 
married at  the  time  of  the  testator's  death  he  could  inherit  pro- 
vided he  married  within  a  hundred  days.  Also  certain  honors  and 
other  advantages  accrued  to  the  married ;  they  had  privileged  seats 
in  the  theatres  ;  of  two  consuls  he  had  the  fasces  first  who  had  the 
most  children ;  they  also  had  preference  as  candidates  for  office 
at  home,  and  also  in  the  provinces.  The  having  a  certain  number 
of  children  made  the  parent  exempt  from  certain  duties,  as,  for 
instance,  serving  on  juries,  or,  in  the  case  of  freedmen,  from  any 
service  to  their  patron.  These  laws  also  aimed  to  check  the  ten- 


ROME   IN  THE   TIME   OF   HORACE.  227 

dency  to  divorces  which  had  begun  to  be  common  at  the  end  of 
the  republic,  and  which  were  now  still  more  easily  and  oftener 
obtained.  They  affixed  pecuniary  penalties  or  losses  upon  the 
party  whose  conduct  caused  the  divorce,  in  the  case  of  the  hus- 
band by  requiring  him  to  return  his  wife's  dowry,  in  the  case  of 
the  wife  by  allowing  the  husband  to  retain  one  half  of  the  dowry. 
The  divorce  was  also  made  more  difficult  by  requiring  certain 
forms,  without  which  the  separation  was  invalid  and  another  mar- 
riage was  illegal ;  the  letter  of  divorce  had  to  be  given  by  a 
freedman  of  the  party  who  made  it,  in  the  presence  of  seven  wit- 
nesses, all  Roman  citizens  of  age.  But  these  statutes  failed  of 
securing  their  end.  With  the  decline  of  interest  in  public  life, 
and  the  decline  of  public  life  itself,  the  advantages  which  were 
offered  the  married  in  respect  of  civil  offices  acted  as  motives 
upon  very  few  persons,  and  the  disabilities  of  the  unmarried  were 
more  than  balanced  by  the  consideration  they  had  in  celibacy. 

If  now  we  turn  from  these  notices  of  the  lives  of  the  privi- 
leged classes  to  the  condition  and  welfare  of  the  common  people, 
we  are  presented  with  a  contrast  in  respect  to  all  the  means  of 
outward  well-being  of  the  most  astonishing  kind.  Such  a  luxu- 
rious life  as  that  of  the  Roman  nobles  would  in  any  modern  city 
open  to  the  rest  of  the  population  a  thousand  sources  of  lucrative 
business,  and  might  diffuse  general  prosperity  among  the  working 
classes  ;  but  in  Rome  such  results  followed  only  in  the  most  lim- 
ited extent.  Hundreds  of  men  were  indeed  supported  by  a  single 
opulent  Roman ;  but  these  were  not  citizens  but  slaves.  Every 
great  establishment  was  independent  by  its  numerous  slaves  of 
free  and  hired  labor.  The  slaves  of  a  great  family  were  not  only 
its  domestics,  but  also  its  bakers  and  its  shoemakers  and  tailors 
and  even  its  physicians ;  the  landed  proprietor  had  also  in  his 
slaves  his  farmers  and  shepherds,  his  fishermen  and  sportsmen  ; 
thus,  too,  the  builders  found  their  artisans  and  laborers.  This 
great  evil,  which  thus  cut  off  the  poorer  citizens  from  the  ordinary 
means  of  living,  was  still  further  aggravated  by  the  policy  of  the 
state,  which  not  only  had  in  its  employ  great  numbers  of  its  own 
slaves,  but  also  allowed  the  contractors  for  public  works  to  make 
use  of  slaves  as  their  agents  and  workmen.  We  may  thus  readily 
discover  the  condition  of  the  citizens  who  formed  the  mass  of  the 
common  people.  Real  estate  they  owned  scarcely  at  all.  The 
small  estates  of  the  commoners  had,  by  the  numerous  wars  and  the 
debts  which  wars  entail,  long  since  been  alienated,  and  were  now 


228  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

absorbed  in  the  villas  and  gardens  or  other  possessions  of  the 
great  proprietors  and  capitalists.  A  part  of  these  citizens  secured 
regular  support  by  trade.  But  Rome  was  at  no  period,  and  now 
less  than  ever  before,  a  commercial  city  or  a  city  of  extensive 
trade,  and  whoever  was  inclined  to  these  departments  of  business 
was  sure  to  settle  in  the  provinces.  In  the  immediate  surround- 
ings of  Rome  and  in  all  Italy  very  little  was  raised  for  export. 
The  republic  even  in  its  best  days  was  unable  to  furnish  its  armies 
with  corn  grown  in  Italy,  and  now  that  agriculture  in  the  penin- 
sula, by  the  withdrawal  of  regular  labor  through  the  civil  wars, 
and  especially  by  the  appropriation  of  the  soil  by  the  great  pro- 
prietors to  the  uses  of  luxury,  had  wholly  declined,  the  little  grain 
that  was  raised  was  wholly  inadequate  to  the  home  supply.  Even 
the  wine  and  oil,  which  had  always  been  staples  of  Italy,  and  in 
earlier  times  were  largely  exported  to  the  provinces,  were  now 
never  raised  in  sufficient  quantity  for  Italy ;  and  the  wines  im- 
ported from  abroad  far  exceeded  in  quality  and  value  those  grown 
at  home.  Italy  now  produced  little  and  consumed  much.  It  was 
the  provinces  that  were  the  producers,  and  it  was  the  provincial- 
ists  and  the  Romans  who  lived  in  the  provinces  that  grew  rich  by 
commerce.  It  was  thus,  indeed,  that  the  provincialists  made  peace- 
ful retaliations  upon  Rome,  and  were  receiving  back  the  immense 
sums  they  had  lost  by  tribute  and  plunder.  The  carrying  trade 
of  these  and  numberless  other  imports  was  also  in  the  hands  of 
the  provincialists  ;  and  such  trade  as  was  carried  on  in  the  city 
was  conducted  mostly  by  foreigners.  To  these  adverse  consider- 
ations must  be  added  another,  and  a  radical  one :  the  aversion 
well-nigh  innate  in  a  Roman  mind,  and  cherished  and  strength- 
ened by  long  usage  against  trading  in  every  form.  Indeed  the 
only  branch  of  business  that  was  deemed  respectable  was  banking 
and  money  lending  in  all  its  forms ;  and  this,  which  was  extended 
and  lucrative,  was  now  in  high  repute  and  conducted  by  persons 
of  the  highest  consideration,  though  indeed  the  business  had  its 
low  grades  as  in  modern  times  and  its  usurious  and  fraudulent  de- 
vices. The  number  of  bankers  and  money-brokers  who  had  their 
offices  and  stands  in  the  Forum  and  its  vicinity  was  very  large. 
At  certain  hours  of  the  day  this  entire  quarter  was  one  vast  ex- 
change crowded  with  borrowers  and  lenders  and  exchangers  ;  the 
very  atmosphere  was  redolent  and  well-nigh  vocal  with  gold  and 
silver  ;  indeed,  to  borrow  an  image  used  by  Horace  (Episti  I.  1), 
the  grand  arches  of  Janus,  which  looked  down  upon  the  busy 


ROME   IN  THE  TIME   OF  HORACE.  229 

crowds,  if  they  could  have  caught  from  Mercury  the  gift  of 
speech,  would  have  proclaimed  aloud  the  current  doctrine  of 
young  and  old,  "  Get  money  above  all  things  else ;  rightly  if  you 
can,  but  at  all  events  get  it.  Get  money  first,  virtue  afterwards  ; 
get  money  in  all  haste,  virtue  at  your  leisure."  There  were,  of 
course,  mechanics  among  the  citizens,  but  very  few,  as  their  busi- 
ness ranked  among  the  so-called  sordid  arts  ;  and  these  few  were 
in  little  demand,  because  the  rich  employed  their  slaves  for  me- 
chanical purposes.  To  a  small  portion  of  citizens  the  govern- 
ment afforded  means  of  support  in  the  departments  of  public 
business.  These  required  scribce  or  clerks,  and  other  subordi- 
nates, who  had  a  salary  from  the  public  treasury.  Horace  him- 
self before  he  became  known  to  fame  held  the  office  of  a  quaestor's 
clerk.  So,  too,  the  colleges  of  priests,  and  the  offices  for  the 
registry  of  deaths,  and  the  care  of  funerals,  gave  occupation  to  a 
small  corps  of  salaried  men.  Still  the  number  of  those  who  in 
these  ways  secured  a  subsistence  was  small  compared  with  the 
bulk  of  the  commoners  of  the  city.  The  great  evil  from  which 
Eome  was  thus  suffering  was  the  loss  of  that  industrious  and 
prosperous  middle  class  of  citizens  who  had  formerly  been  the 
strength  of  the  nation ;  this  evil  was  incurred  partly  through  the 
prostration  of  agriculture  by  the  heavy  tread  of  war,  and  partly 
by  the  introduction  of  an  immense  slave  population.  The  evil 
had  its  earliest  origin  far  back  in  the  times  of  the  republic ;  its 
beginnings  were  discerned  just  after  the  second  Punic  war  ;  it  had 
grown  to  a  fearful  height  in  the  period  of  Tiberius  Gracchus,  and 
its  pernicious  effects  gave  rise  to  the  patriotic  though  rashly  con- 
ducted measures  of  that  eloquent  and  fearless  tribune ;  but  now  in 
the  reign  of  Augustus  it  had  reached  a  rank  maturity.  The  bulk 
of  the  Roman  commons  had  now  been  changed  from  prosperous 
citizens  into  state  paupers  dependent  upon  the  state  for  their 
daily  bread.  The  monthly  distributions  of  corn  kept  over  600,000 
free  Eomans  from  starvation,  and  when  the  number  was  reduced 
to  400,000,  the  reduction  was  made  possible  either  by  extraor- 
dinary money  largesses,  or  by  shipping  poor  colonies  to  foreign 
parts  very  much  as  European  countries  have  sent  to  our  own 
shores  ship-loads  of  their  paupers  and  discharged  criminals.  It 
was,  however,  a  difficult  task  even  to  diminish  or  control  the 
influence  of  these  social  evils.  Their  causes  lay  too  deeply  im- 
bedded in  earlier  political  relations,  and  also  in  the  usages  and 
spirit  of  the  people.  The  sense  of  political  importance  still 


230  ROME  IN  THE  TIME  OF  HORACE. 

lingered  in  spite  of  changes  in  government  in  the  consciousness 
of  every  free  Roman ;  even  the  meanest  citizen  from  among  the 
rabble  of  the  city  was  inspired  with  a  feeling  of  consequence  and 
honor  characteristic  of  the  people  of  a  country  which  had  been 
for  centuries  the  home  of  free  institutions.  Besides,  the  mildness 
of  his  climate  rendered  the  Roman  more  independent  of  physical 
influences  which  press  with  so  much  force  upon  dwellers  in  colder 
countries.  Hence  he  could  more  readily  keep  aloof  from  the 
necessity  of  daily  labor,  and  doubtless  many  were  the  free  Ro- 
mans, genuine  prototypes  of  the  lazzaroni  of  Naples,  who  had  no 
home  by  day  but  the  squares  and  other  lounges  of  the  city,  and 
none  by  night  but  the  friendly  shelter  of  the  vestibules  and  por- 
ticoes of  the  temples  and  other  public  buildings.  To  check  the 
general  idleness,  Augustus  sometimes  resolved  to  take  radical 
measures  and  to  give  up  altogether  the  gratuities  of  corn  or 
money.  But  such  a  resolution  he  always  abandoned,  and  things 
went  on  as  before.  As  long  as  slave  labor  rendered  all  labor 
servile  so  that  the  free  citizens  preferred  to  be  poor  and  dependent 
rather  than  lose  respectability  by  working  with  their  own  hands, 
so  long  the  efforts  of  the  emperor  to  do  away  with  idleness  and 
poverty  were  ineffectual.  Indeed,  he  was  obliged  to  do  more  than 
feed  his  people  ;  he  had  to  find  them  in  amusements.  The  poor 
of  any  people  or  country,  when  systematically  fed,  grow  very 
exacting.  The  more  you  cherish  in  them  a  sense  and  habit  of 
dependence,  and  so  impair  their  character,  so  much  the  more 
they  require  and  seem  to  need ;  and  what  once  they  took  as  a 
favor  they  come  to  claim  as  a  right.  This  familiar  truth  was 
illustrated  on  a  large  scale  in  Augustan  Rome.  These  beggarly 
Romans  came  to  be  dependent  upon  the  government  not  only  for 
their  bread  but  also  for  their  recreations,  the  only  business  they 
generally  pursued.  Hence  the  systematic  and  costly  measures  of 
Augustus  for  public  games  and  holiday  shows.  The  regular  fes- 
tivals now  approximated  over  sixty  days  in  the  year,  and  to  these 
were  added  extraordinary  spectacles  of  various  kinds  which  ex- 
ceeded in  number  and  splendor  all  that  had  before  been  known 
in  Rome.  In  his  records  upon  the  Ancyran  monument,  Augus- 
tus enumerates  in  a  long  list  the  gladiatorial  combats  and  the 
fights  with  wild  beasts  and  mock  naval  engagements  which  he 
gave  sometimes  in  his  own  name,  and  sometimes  in  the  name  of 
the  magistrates  whose  means  were  inadequate  to  the  outlay.  This 
whole  system  of  holiday  shows  had  come  to  be  a  kind  of  neces- 


ROME   IN   THE  TIME   OF  HORACE.  '  231 

sity.  If  conducted  with  a  magnificent  generosity  on  the  part  of 
the  state,  it  was  a  generosity  of  such  questionable  sort  that  a 
shrewd  policy  could  not  withhold  it ;  and  if  it  was  met  by  the 
people  as  a  bounty,  it  was  such  bounty  that  the  total  withdrawal 
would  have  aroused  feelings  akin  to  a  sense  of  wrong  and  injus- 
tice. The  words  of  Juvenal  of  the  "  rabble  of  Remus  "  in  his 
time  would  as  well  apply  to  the  Romans  of  the  time  of  Horace, 
"  the  people  who  once  conferred  the  imperium  and  the  fasces  and 
the  legions,  now  anxiously  longs  for  only  two  things,  bread  and 
the  Circensian  games." 


THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

WRITTEN    FOR   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,    JANUARY   5,  1872,    ALSO 
PRINTED    IN    THE   "BAPTIST  QUARTERLY." 

MR.  JOWETT'S  translation  of  Plato  *  is  probably  the  ablest  con- 
tribution made  by  any  living  English  scholar  to  the  literature  of 
classical  philology.  This  work  may  be  considered  as  an  ample 
discharge  of  a  debt  long  due  from  English  scholarship  to  the  writ- 
ings of  the  great  master  of  the  Academy,  who  held  imperial  sway 
in  the  realm  of  Grecian  thought  and  speech  in  the  culminating 
era  of  its  splendor  and  power.  The  classical  scholars  of  England, 
though  in  more  recent  times  they  have  risen  above  their  traditional 
devotion  to  Greek  metres  and  their  studious  fondness  for  the 
graces,  the  delicice  litterarum,  of  classical  studies,  and  have  emu- 
lated their  learned  neighbors  of  the  continent  in  aspiring  to  the 
comprehension  and  interpretation  of  those  leading  minds  of  an- 
tiquity which,  by  their  thinking,  have  to  this  day  influenced  the 
thought  of  the  world,  have  yet  hitherto  fallen  far  behind  the  Ger- 
mans in  penetrating  and  working  the  veins  of  wisdom  and  truth 
which  enrich  the  Greek  of  Plato,  and  in  bringing  forth  to  use 
their  precious  stores,  whether  by  translation  or  by  criticism  or  by 
commentary  and  exposition.  It  was  one  of  the  many  distinctions 
achieved  by  Schleiermacher,  that,  by  his  learned  and  enthusiastic 
labors  on  Plato's  works,  he  introduced  early  in  the  present  century 
by  far  the  most  fruitful  of  the  many  eras  of  Platonic  research  and 
study  which  have  arisen  at  different  periods  in  modern  times,  and 
given  impulse  and  onward  movement  to  the  progress  of  human 
thought.  That  many-sided  German,  who  by  his  writings  and  his 
lectures  exerted  a  no  less  powerful  influence  upon  the  intellectual 
life  of  his  times  than  upon  its  religious  character  by  his  eloquence 
and  piety  as  a  preacher,  busy  all  the  week,  both  at  the  university 
with  his  lectures  two  hours  every  day,  and  in  his  study  in  writing 

1  The  Dialogues  of  Plato,  translated  into  English,  with  Analyses  and  Introduc- 
tions, by  B.  Jowett,  M.  A.,  Master  of  Balliol  College,  Regius  Professor  of  Greek 
in  the  University  of  Oxford.  In  four  volumes,  octavo.  Oxford  :  At  the  Clar- 
endon Press.  1871.  Reprinted  in  New  York,  in  four  volumes,  duodecimo,  by 
Charles  Scribner  &  Co.  1871. 


THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS.  233 

for  the  press,  and  crowning  all  this  activity  by  preaching  every 
Sunday  to  crowded  congregations  of  the  most  thoughtful  and  cul- 
tivated people  in  Berlin,  yet  found  time  amidst  all  these  labors 
for  a  profound  and  thorough  study  of  Plato,  continued  through 
more  than  twenty  years,  the  fruits  of  which  he  gave  to  the  world 
in  a  masterly  translation,  accompanied  by  special  introductions  to 
the  several  dialogues,  unfolding  their  plan  and  contents,  together 
with  a  general  introduction  tp  the  whole  series.  This  great  work 
of  Schleiermacher  affords  a  signal  example  of  the  quickening  and 
productive  influence  of  an  original  mind,  occupied  with  all  its 
powers  upon  exalted  subjects  of  inquiry ;  like  the  living  voice  of 
Socrates  and  the  written  words  of  Plato  himself,  it  planted  the 
seeds  of  germinant  thought  in  many  kindred  minds ;  it  stimulated 
to  a  new  intellectual  life,  not  only  the  classical  scholars  of  Ger- 
many, who  by  professional  occupation  were  lovers  and  teachers  of 
Plato's  Greek,  but  all  thinking  men  among  that  intellectual  peo- 
ple who,  through  their  interest  in  other  studies,  theology,  or  phi- 
losophy, or  morals,  shared  with  these  the  love  and  pursuit  of  the 
imperishable  thought  enshrined  in  that  matchless  diction ;  and 
thus  it  gave  rise  to  a  succession  of  able  works,  exegetical,  histori- 
cal, and  philosophical,  in  themselves  a  copious  Platonic  literature, 
which  furnished  ampler  and  better  means  than  ever  existed  be- 
fore, of  gaining  a  comprehension  and  appreciation  of  the  genius 
of  Plato,  and  of  the  great  and  manifold  value  of  his  writings. 
This  renewed  ardor  for  the  study  of  Plato  was  soon  shared  with 
the  Germans  by  French  scholars,  and,  most  of  all,  by  Cousin, 
whose  residence  and  studies  in  Germany  and  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  Schleiermacher  and  Schelling  and  Hegel  contributed 
to  prepare  him  not  only  for  his  after  brilliant  successes  at  the  Sor- 
bonne,  but  for  the  higher  and  more  enduring  honor  of  doing  for 
his  countrymen  the  same  noble  service  which  Schleiermacher  had 
done  for  the  Germans,  in  the  translation  and  exposition  of  the 
entire  works  of  Plato.  In  England,  too,  the  German  Platonism 
was  felt,  and,  though  later,  yet  with  a  no  less  quickening  force 
and  with  equally  conspicuous  results.  The  most  general  and  most 
notable  of  these  results  was  the  marked  change  which  was  made 
in  the  plan  of  education  at  Oxford ;  where  the  range  of  philosoph- 
ical reading  and  study  was  so  widened  and  liberalized  that  Aristo- 
tle, who  had  so  long  had  exclusive  sway  in  Greek  philosophy,  now 
came  to  hold  a  divided  rule  with  the  ascending  influence  of  his 
master ;  and  thus  the  hard  logical  discipline  imparted  by  the  Aris- 


234  THE   PLATONIC   MYTHS. 

totelian  ethics  was  blended  with  the  far  richer  and  more  various 
mental  culture  yielded  by  those  masterpieces  of  Platonic  dialogue, 
in  which  poetry  and  philosophy  join  their  forces  in  friendly  con- 
test of  wit  and  reason,  with  all  the  muses  assisting  at  the  noble 
strife.  Mr.  Jowett  was  the  earliest  and  foremost,  not  only  of  Ox- 
ford, but  of  all  English  scholars,  in  promoting  this  revival  of  the 
study  of  Plato  in  England,  and  the  great  work  which  he  has  now 
published  is  its  latest  and  ripest  fruit.  It  is  a  work  which  makes 
an  epoch  not  only  in  the  history  of  Greek  study  in  England,  but 
also,  and  far  more,  in  the  history  of  English  literature,  and  in  the 
general  history  of  philosophy.  So  eminently  has  the  author  suc- 
ceeded not  only  in  translating  Plato's  language,  but  also  by  his 
introductions  to  the  separate  dialogues  in  translating  the  ideas  of 
Plato ;  indeed  he  has  created  an  English  classic  by  reproducing, 
in  a  form  alike  fitted  for  general  readers  and  scholars  of  higher 
culture,  the  entire  works  of  the  greatest  literary  and  philosophical 
genius  of  ancient  Greece.  The  author's  beautiful  dedication  to 
his  "  former  pupils  in  Balliol  College  who,  during  thirty  years, 
have  been  the  best  of  friends  "  to  him,  makes  a  very  suggestive 
sentence  on  the  first  page  of  his  book ;  it  suggests  with  many  other 
topics  of  thought  on  which  one  would  gladly  linger,  the  literary 
history  of  the  work,  and  the  genial  air  and  fortunate  conditions  in 
which  it  gradually  came  into  being.  It  is  the  mature  production 
not  of  a  thinker  and  scholar  who  has  passed  his  life  in  the  seclu- 
sion of  lettered  ease,  in  the  solitary  and  luxurious  enjoyment  of 
delightful  studies,  but  of  a  lifelong  teacher  and  educator  of  the 
young,  for  whose  training  and  culture  all  his  own  mental  resources 
have  been  both  acquired  and  employed,  —  a  richly  gifted  and  as- 
piring mind,  possessed  with  a  genuine  philosopher's  love  of  know- 
ledge and  truth,  kindling  in  other  and  younger  minds  the  same 
noble  passion,  and  feeding  and  enriching  them  out  of  the  stores  of 
Attic  wit  and  wisdom  itself  has  so  busily  gathered. 

Of  Mr.  Jowett's  many  qualifications  for  the  great  task  accom- 
plished in  this  work,  his  Greek  scholarship,  ripe  and  ample  as  it 
doubtless  is,  is  not  the  one  which  excites  the  most  admiration. 
The  reader  must  infer  that  his  mind  is  not  one  distinguished  by 
what  we  may  call  the  philological  quality ;  it  does  not  take  kindly 
to  niceties  of  verbal  criticism ;  it  certainly  is  not  of  the  kindred  of 
that  unenviable  scholar  who,  at  the  end  of  a  long  life  devoted  to 
the  elucidation  of  two  Greek  particles,  profoundly  regretted  that 
he  had  not  confined  himself  to  one ;  it  is  evidently  rather  impa- 


THE  PLATONIC   MYTHS.  235 

tient  of  that  study  and  appropriation  of  the  minutiae  of  grammati- 
cal knowledge  which  belongs  to  the  highest  order  of  faithful  and 
accurate  translation.  But  whatever  defects  may  perhaps  be  set 
against  Mr.  Jowett's  account  in  strict  philological  merits,  espe- 
cially in  comparison  with  the  elder  English  school  of  the  Bentleys 
and  Persons,  or  with  his  immediate  predecessor  in  the  Oxford 
Regius  Professorship,  Mr.  Gaisford,  these  are  amply  made  up  by 
the  presence  of  other  merits  never  possessed  by  those  classical 
scholars,  and  which  are  especially  required  for  the  adequate  trans- 
lation and  exposition  of  Plato.  The  chief  of  these,  and  that  which 
must  awaken  the  grateful  admiration  of  his  readers,  consists  in 
the  fullness  and  fineness  of  his  well-digested  knowledge  not  only 
of  Plato's  thought,  but  of  the  whole  history  of  philosophic  thought 
in  ancient  and  in  modern  times.  During  all  his  life  a  diligent 
student  in  philosophy,  not  only  of  the  Greek  masters,  but  of  all 
who,  in  different  countries  in  subsequent  times,  and  especially  the 
German  in  our  own,  have  illustrated  its  successive  annals,  he  has 
been  able  to  avail  himself  of  the  lights  of  all  the  great  philoso- 
phies of  the  world  in  contemplating  and  exhibiting  that  of  Plato, 
his  favorite  and  greatest  master  of  all.  This  wealth  of  philosophic 
culture  Mr.  Jowett  has  dispensed  with  like  wisdom  and  liberality 
in  his  admirable  introductions,  which  for  students  of  philosophy 
will  make  the  chief  value  of  his  work,  and  for  all  minds  have  a 
surpassing  educational  value,  and  which  will  doubtless  secure  for 
him  a  permanent  rank  among  the  ablest  interpreters  of  Plato's 
mind  and  philosophy  of  the  present  or  of  any  age.  But  for  a 
larger  circle  of  readers,  for  all  scholars  of  whatever  degree  of  cul- 
ture, the  great  charm  and  distinction  of  the  work  will  be  found  in 
the  rare  assemblage  of  literary  qualities  which  enrich  and  adorn 
its  pages,  and  which  invest  it  with  the  character  of  an  original 
production  of  high  literary  art.  Besides  the  fine  gifts  and  large 
resources  of  a  broad  and  generous  scholarship,  of  the  possession 
of  which  Mr.  Jowett  has  given  ample  evidence  in  his  former  writ- 
ings, he  has  here  displayed  the  truly  poetic  faculty  of  conceiving 
and  appreciating,  with  the  charming  scenery  of  Plato's  Dialogues, 
his  manifold  moods  of  thought,  and  tones  of  feeling  and  sentiment, 
and  the  varying  hues  of  his  many  colored  diction,  and  also  of  cre- 
ating an  English  diction  capable  of  bearing  all  this  precious  bur- 
den of  intellectual  wealth.  It  is  this  dramatic  power  of  entering 
into  and  expressing  in  fitting  English  the  subtleties  and  elegances 
of  Platonic  thought  and  speech,  which  makes  at  once  the  boldness 


236  THE   PLATONIC   MYTHS. 

and  the  success  of  Mr.  Jowett's  style  of  translation ;  and  for  all 
readers  of  literary  taste  and  sensibility,  and  especially  all  connois- 
seurs and  lovers  of  Plato,  it  gives  his  performance  an  excellence 
quite  unattainable  by  the  utmost  accuracy  and  fidelity  of  a  merely 
verbal  scholarship.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  those  who  know  Plato 
best  and  love  him  most,  may  miss,  even  in  this  translation,  the 
great  original ;  but  on  these  the  translation  must  act  even  as  Pla- 
to's favorite  theory  of  reminiscence ;  these  fair  images  must  kindle 
in  the  delighted  memory  the  remembrance  of  those  original  forms 
of  beauty  and  truth  they  once  directly  saw,  and  bear  them  back 
to  that  higher  sphere  where,  as  in  a  happy  home,  they  may  again 
gaze  upon  them  face  to  face.  For  it  is  Plato  in  English,  Plato  as 
he  lives  in  his  Dialogues,  who  is  here  brought  before  you  in  liv- 
ing reality  ;  Plato  himself  shines  through  the  English  as  through 
an  aerial  transparent  veil,  all  bright  and  luminous.  As  you  read 
you  seem  to  be  transported  to  the  days  of  Plato  and  to  Plato's 
Athens.  You  are  by  turns  in  the  Palaestra,  the  Lyceum,  the  Acad- 
emy, or  out  by  the  "cool  Ilissus,"  reclining  on  the  soft  grass, 
under  the  shading  plane-tree ;  or  again  you  are  within  courtly 
Attic  interiors,  as  the  house  of  Agathon  or  of  Callias ;  you  have 
the  very  atmosphere  of  Athenian  society  created  about  you,  and 
you  feel  all  its  Attic  urbanity  of  bearing  and  language ;  and  there 
you  have  reproduced  before  you  those  illustrious  personages  of 
Platonic  dialogue  in  all  that  exquisite  dramatic  portraiture  and 
grouping,  and  you  may  follow  their  high  discourse  on  things  of 
profoundest  spiritual  moment,  as  under  the  supreme  conduct  of 
reason,  with  all  ministering  aids  of  imagination,  wit,  humor,  irony, 
raillery,  it  is  ever  striving  onward  to  the  bright,  alluring  goal  of 
absolute  truth  and  good. 

A  conspicuous  phase  of  this  richly  appointed  discourse,  as  it 
thus  goes  forward  in  these  Dialogues,  is  presented  by  the  Myths 
of  Plato,  a  subject  most  fruitful  in  interest  and  instruction,1  of 
which  I  propose  to  attempt,  in  the  remainder  of  this  article,  some 
unfolding  and  illustration. 

The  mythical  form  of  discussion,  though  foreign  to  modern 

1  Hegel  has  touched  on  this  subject  in  his  Geschichte  d.  Philosophic,  Bd.  II. 
188-217;  also  Zeller,  Phil.  d.  Griechen ;  Bd.  II.  361-363,  and  384-387;  also 
C.  F.  Hermann,  Gesch.  d.  Platon.  Phil.;  also  B.  F.  Westcott  has  discussed  it 
in  the  Contemporary  Review,  vol.  ii.  The  German  work  by  Dr.  J.  Deuschle, 
die  Platonischen  Mythen,  I  am  acquainted  with  only  through  a  notice  of  it  by 
Susemihl  in  Bd.  70  of  Jahn's  Jahrbucher. 


THE  PLATONIC   MYTHS.  237 

philosophical  writers,  is  constantly  employed  by  Plato ;  it  is  no  less 
germane  than  the  dialectic  form  to  his  philosophy  and  to  his  own 
mind ;  his  genius,  in  its  freest  movement,  is  alike  native  and 
familiar  to  the  processes  of  the  imagination  and  of  the  reason ; 
and  both  it  ever  pursues  with  the  same  earnestness  of  spirit,  and 
for  the  same  intellectual  and  moral  ends.  In  reading  his  Dialogues, 
you  pass,  by  the  easiest  transitions,  from  the  severest  logical  in- 
vestigations to  poetic  representations  of  truth,  which  are  fashioned 
from  sensible  images  or  from  analogies  of  human  life ;  from  an 
atmosphere  where  has  reigned  the  light  of  pure  thought,  you 
enter  regions  all  aglow  with  various  coloring  through  the  prismatic 
touch  of  the  imagination ;  the  discourse  of  Socrates,  or  some  other 
leading  speaker,  glides  into  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  an  old 
world  story,  or  a  tale,  or  a  narrative  which  he  professes  to  have 
heard  from  some  sage  priest,  or  a  certain  wise  woman ;  or  into 
a  scene  or  a  series  of  scenes,  which  under  the  cunning  agency  of 
art  gradually  expand  into  the  rich  fullness  of  a  grand  epic,  or  of 
a  solemn  drama. 

All  these  varieties  of  mythical  representation  have  this  general 
feature  in  common,  that  they  give  expression  to  ideas  in  the 
language  of  sensible  imagery;  the  substance  is  speculative,  the 
form  is  poetic.  Of  them  all,  too,  it  may  be  observed,  that  so 
far  from  being,  as  some  have  supposed,  mere  outward  adornments 
of  speech,  or  graceful  embellishments  of  thought,  or  mere  poetic 
fancies,  void  of  reality,  they  belong  essentially  to  Plato's  entire 
manner  of  thinking  and  of  expression,1  and  are  conceived  by  him 
and  directly  affirmed  as  resting  upon  a  substantial  basis  of  truth. 
"  Listen,"  Socrates  says,  at  the  beginning  of  one  of  his  mythical 
narratives,  "  listen  to  a  tale,  which  you  may  be  disposed  to  regard 
as  only  a  fable,  but  which,  as  I  believe,  is  a  true  tale,  for  I  mean, 
in  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  to  speak  the  truth."  And  so  at 
the  end  he  says,  "  There  might  be  reason  in  your  contemning 
such  tales,  if  by  searching  you  could  find  out  anything  better  or 
truer."  Such  is  Plato's  language  in  regard  to  all  his  myths. 

When,  however,  we  make  a  comparative  study  of  these  poetic 
representations,  we  find  that,  while  they  have  these  general  features 
in  common,  they  are  separated  by  marked  distinctions  in  their 
nature,  and  in  the  occasions  and  uses  for  which  they  are  employed. 
Some,  and  these  among  the  best  in  substance  of  thought  and 
finest  in  form  of  art,  are  rather  allegorical  than  strictly  mythical, 
1  C.  F.  Hermann,  Abhandlungen,  §  291. 


238  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

and  in  some  instances  rise  into  elaborately  constructed  allegories, 
which  illustrate  the  most  perfect  style  of  this  kind  of  figurative 
discourse.  Here  the  thought  is  first  present  in  its  entireness  in 
the  mind  of  the  writer,  and  might  just  as  well  be  expressed  in  the 
language  of  the  thinking  faculty,  but  yet,  by  the  profoundest 
motives  to  the  preference,  is  cast  in  an  imaginative  form.  This 
form  is  most  congenial  not  only  to  the  native  bent  of  Plato's 
genius,  but  also  to  his  habitual  and  ever  present  view  of  the 
intimate  relation  between  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  world,  and 
to  the  ethical  and  religious  spirit  of  his  whole  philosophy.  In  all 
the  world  of  sense  visible  to  the  bodily  eye,  he  beheld  ever  the 
faint  reflection  of  a  world  of  spirit,  visible  to  the  eye  of  reason ; 
in  the  changing,  passing  phenomena  of  the  seen,  he  discerned 
only  images  of  the  changeless  realities  of  the  unseen  ;  the  sun  and 
moon  and  stars  and  the  earth,  with  all  their  light  and  beauty 
and  glory,  for  him  were  shadowy  imitations  of  original  patterns 
of  perfection  in  the  Divine  Ideas.  Thus  to  his  habitual  concep- 
tion all  nature  and  the  whole  life  of  man  was  one  vast  and  vari- 
ous allegorical  emblem  of  spiritual  truth ;  and  so  it  was  by  a 
natural  and  spontaneous  choice  that  in  discoursing  upon  such 
truth,  he  should  set  it  in  pictures  after  the  manner  and  likeness 
of  the  universal  picture  by  which  he  felt  himself  to  be  ever 
surrounded.  This  form  of  teaching  was  also  in  harmony  with  the 
ethical  spirit  of  Plato's  writings.  It  is  this  spirit  which  pervades 
and  informs,  as  an  animating  soul,  the  whole  body  of  his  writings. 
The  world  affords  no  other  instance  of  a  philosophic  writer  of 
such  genuine  speculative  powers,  concentrated  upon  such  practical 
moral  ends,  who  so  perfectly  united  and  identified  life  with  science, 
action  with  knowledge,  morality  and  religion  with  philosophy. 
With  him  philosophy  was  not,  as  in  the  modern  sense,  a  theory  of 
the  universe,  or  of  man ;  it  was  not  a  methodical  exposition  of  any 
intellectual  system  already  worked  out  in  his  own  mind ;  he  was 
from  first  to  last  an  inquirer  with  other  inquirers,  bent  with 
utmost  intent  upon  the  pursuit  and  appropriation  of  truth,  in  all 
the  fair  realms  and  forms  in  which  it  exists,  which  are  accessible 
to  the  nature  of  man.  In  his  view,  philosophy  was  first  and  pre- 
eminently moral,  in  that,  as  its  name  imports,  it  is  the  love  of 
wisdom ;  this  noblest  of  human  passions  alone  supplied  the  suf- 
ficient and  constant  force  to  the  scientific  search  and  discovery 
of  wisdom  in  its  ultimate  principles,  and  then  the  due  force  of 
motive  for  its  reception  and  assimilation  in  the  character  and 


THE  PLATONIC   MYTHS.  239 

the  life.  Excelling  in  science  his  great  master,  by  establishing 
the  Socratic  principles  upon  a  broad  and  firm  scientific  basis, 
he  emulated  his  noble  example  as  a  teacher  of  virtue,  in  striving 
to  enlighten  and  inform  his  generation  in  all  right  sentiment 
and  action,  in  an  age  and  society  no  less  noted  for  refinement 
of  manners  and  literary  culture  than  for  looseness  in  the  theory 
and  the  practice  of  right  living.  When  we  remember  that  these 
were  the  ultimate  ends  of  all  Plato's  philosophical  teachings,  we 
can  readily  understand  why  he  laid  under  contribution  all  the 
resources  of  the  imagination  in  the  illustration  and  enforcement 
of  truth.  None  knew  better  than  he,  nor  better  exercised  the 
moral  functions  of  this  creative  faculty;  and  never  were  they 
more  fitly  employed  than  in  the  instruction  of  a  people  so  alive 
as  the  Greeks  to  its  influence,  and  so  susceptible  of  its  educating 
power.  Finally,  we  are  also  to  remember  that  in  the  religious 
aims  of  his  philosophy,  in  his  purpose  to  reform  such  religion 
as  the  Greeks  possessed,  he  had  to  deal  with  conceptions  of  the 
gods  which,  in  the  forms  of  mythology,  were  originally  the  off- 
spring of  the  imagination,  and  which,  notwithstanding  the  mix- 
ture of  false  elements  they  contained,  yet  through  the  enduring 
beauty  of  their  poetic  garb  still  lingered  in  the  popular  faith.  In 
re-creating  the  natural  religion,  of  which  Homer  had  been  the 
maker  ages  before,  and  whose  poems  had  been  the  Bible  of  the 
Greeks  for  succeeding  generations,  it  was  his  far  higher  office, 
himself  a  philosophical  poet,  to  clothe  in  forms  of  like  poetic 
beauty,  truer  and  better  creations  of  the  Supreme  Being,  as  the 
supremely  true  and  good,  and  supremely  worthy  of  man's  know- 
ledge, adoration,  and  service. 

Let  me  now  present  some  illustrations  of  these  allegorical  myths. 
Out  of  the  many  I  will  select  two,  which  are  among  the  most 
perfect  of  their  kind  and  which  also  represent  what  is  most  char- 
acteristic in  the  substance  and  manner  of  Plato's  philosophical 
teachings. 

The  first  is  the  well  known  allegory  of  the  Cave,  in  the  seventh 
book  of  the  "  Republic."  Lord  Bacon  has  drawn  from  it,  to  exhibit 
in  his  "  Idols  of  the  Den  "  the  wayward  prejudices  of  individual 
human  character ;  but  in  Plato,  it  is  a  picture  on  a  broader 
canvas,  of  the  world  of  the  truly  educated  philosopher,  and  of 
that  of  ordinary  men,  with  their  imperfect  education.  Towards 
the  end  of  the  sixth  book,  Socrates  has  declared  his  doctrine,  that 
only  philosophers  must  be  guardians  of  the  ideal  state,  and  has 


240  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

touched  upon  the  progressive  discipline  they  must  undergo  to  be 
qualified  for  their  high  office.  Of  this  discipline,  the  highest 
stage  of  all  is  the  study  of  the  good.  When  asked  what  is  the 
good,  he  says  that  he  can  convey  a  notion  of  it  only  by  a  figure. 
In  the  world  of  sense,  he  says,1  we  have  the  sun,  the  eye,  and 
visible  objects;  in  the  intellectual  world,  and  corresponding  re- 
spectively to  these,  there  are  the  good,  the  reason,  and  the  ideas. 
The  good,  then,  is  the  sun  of  the  world  of  pure  intelligence ;  it 
sheds  the  light  of  truth  on  all  subjects,  and  gives  to  the  eye  of  the 
soul  the  vision  of  knowledge ;  and  as  in  the  visible  world  light 
and  sight  are  like  the  sun,  and  yet  not  the  sun  itself,  so  in  the 
intellectual,  truth  and  knowledge  may  be  regarded  as  like  the 
good,  but  are  not  the  good  itself,  which  must  be  valued  as  more 
precious  than  they.  Then  follows  the  allegory.  It  is  too  long 
for  direct  quotation.  It  may  suffice  to  present  its  principal  phases, 
which  show  the  chief  truths  it  teaches. 

Imagine,  Socrates  says,2  to  conceive  our  condition  as  educated 
and  as  uneducated,  imagine  an  underground  cave-like  dwelling, 
having  a  long  entrance  open  to  the  light,  and  in  this  dwelling 
men  confined  from  childhood,  their  legs  and  necks  so  bound  that 
they  cannot  move  and  can  see  only  before  them.  At  a  distance 
above  and  behind  them  a  fire  is  blazing,  and  between  the  fire  and 
the  prisoners  runs  a  road,  along  which  a  wall  is  built  up,  just  like 
the  screens  which  jugglers  put  up  in  front  of  the  spectators,  and 
above  which  they  show  their  wonders.  Along  this  wall  men  are 
passing,  carrying  vessels  of  all  sorts,  and  statues  and  other  images 
variously  wrought  in  wood  and  stone,  all  which  project  over  the 
wall ;  and  some  of  the  passers-by  are  talking  and  some  are  silent. 
You  see  that  these  prisoners  can  see  only  the  shadows  of  these 
men  and  these  objects  as  they  are  thrown  by  the  fire-light  on  the 
part  of  the  wall  which  is  in  front  of  them,  and  if  they  should 
talk  to  one  another  they  would  give  names  to  the  shadows  just  as 
if  they  were  the  things  themselves.  And  if  the  cave  returned  an 
echo  when  a  passer-by  spoke,  then  they  would  suppose  that  the 
shadow  itself  spoke,  which  alone  they  saw.  In  short,  for  them  the 
shadows  of  these  men  and  these  things  would  be  the  only  realities. 
So  is  it,  Socrates  teaches,  with  the  life  of  ordinary  men;  they 
live  imprisoned  in  the  world  of  sense,  and  contemplate  its  objects 
alone,  which  are  only  the  shadows  of  the  realities  of  spiritual 
truth.  But  suppose  now,  the  allegory  proceeds,  that  one  of  these 
1  Republic,  vi.  505-509.  '  2  Ibid.  vii.  515-517. 


THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS.  241 

captives  were  unbound,  and  made  to  rise  and  face  the  light  and 
gaze  upon  the  objects  themselves ;  he  would  be  dazzled  by  the 
sudden  splendor,  and  when  told  that  he  had  been  looking  only  at 
shadows  he  would  be  sadly  perplexed,  and  even  believe  that  the 
old  shadows  were  more  real  than  the  substantial  objects  he  now 
beholds.  But  suppose  further  that  he  be  snatched  from  the  cave 
and  dragged  by  a  steep  pathway  to  some  height  on  which  he  may 
gaze  upon  the  full  lustre  of  the  sun  itself.  At  first  his  eyes  will 
be  yet  more  cruelly  dazzled  by  all  this  blaze  of  light,  and  he  will 
be  unable  to  behold  real  objects  at  all.  First  he  will  discern  only 
shadows  and  images  in  the  water,  and  then  the  moon  and  stars  in 
the  heavens,  and  finally  he  will  behold  not  only  the  images  of  the 
sun,  but  the  sun  itself  as  it  is  and  where  it  is.  Such,  now,  is  the 
educated  philosopher  in  comparison  with  uneducated  men ;  he  has 
escaped  out  of  the  world  of  sense,  where  only  shadows  appear, 
and  mounted,  by  the  steep  path  of  knowledge,  to  the  upper  world 
of  intelligence  where  are  seen  by  reason  the  substantial  realities 
of  being,  and  has  gazed  at  last  upon  its  sun,  the  supreme  idea  of 
good,  which  once  seen  is  inferred  to  be  the  cause  of  all  that  is 
beautiful  and  good ;  which  in  the  visible  world  produces  light, 
and  the  orb  that  gives  it,  and  in  the  invisible,  Truth  and  Reason. 
Yet  further  Socrates  carries  out  his  analogy.  As  it  was  necessary 
for  the  prisoner,  in  order  to  see  aright,  not  to  have  eyes  given 
him,  for  these  he  had  before,  but  to  have  his  whole  body  turned 
round,  that  his  eyes  might  look  in  the  right  direction,  so  it  is  the 
task  of  the  right  education  to  turn  the  whole  soul  round,  that  its 
eye,  the  reason,  may  be  directed  straight  to  the  light  of  truth, 
and  endure  the  sight  of  being,  and  of  the  brightest  and  best  of 
being,  that  is  to  say,  the  good.  Finally,  to  the  question  by  what 
agency  this  conversion  of  the  soul  is  to  be  wrought,  the  answer  is 
given :  By  the  agency  of  true  philosophy,  by  those  studies  which 
turn  the  mind  from  the  things  which  are  seen  to  the  things  which 
are  unseen,  from  shadows  to  the  substance,  from  the  transient  and 
phenomenal  to  the  permanent  and  real,  —  in  short  by  all  pursuits 
which  bring  the  mind  to  reflect  upon  the  essential  nature  of 
things.  Then  is  set  forth  the  ascending  series  of  these  studies, 
which  culminate  in  dialectics,  as  the  science  of  real  existence. 
The  pursuit  of  these  studies  imparts  the  power  of  raising  the  high- 
est principle  in  the  soul  to  the  contemplation  of  that  which  is  best 
in  existence,  just  as  in  the  figure  the  clearest  of  the  senses  was 
raised  to  the  sight  of  that  which  is  brightest  in  the  visible  world. 


242  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  philosophy  which  is  seen  and  exhib- 
ited by  Plato  in  allegory.  As  in  the  "  Republic  "  the  world  of 
sense  is  the  exhibition  of  ideal  truth  and  goodness,  contemplated 
on  the  side  of  intelligence  by  the  eye  of  knowledge,  so  in  the 
"  Symposium  "  it  is  the  exhibition  of  ideal  beauty,  contemplated 
on  the  side  of  emotion  by  the  eye  of  desire.  Hence  arose  out  of 
the  imagination  of  Plato  the  allegorical  representation  of  the  phi- 
losophical impulse  in  man  as  "  the  passion  of  the  reason,"  the 
Platonic  Eros,  or  philosophical  love.  I  shall  not  attempt  a  full 
discussion  of  this  subject.  There  were  needful  for  that  an  ex- 
position not  only  of  the  whole  of  the  "  Symposium,"  the  most  per- 
fect in  artistic  form  of  all  the  Platonic  dialogues,  and  more  pecu- 
liarly  Greek  and  Platonic  in  subject  and  style  than  any  other, 
but  also  of  the  Greek  mind  and  society  in  Plato's  time,  and  espe- 
cially of  some  elements  of  Grecian  sentiment  and  practice,  which 
need  not  here  be  touched,  and  which  are  hardly  less  strange  to 
Homeric  than  to  Christian  feeling,1  and  in  their  relation  to 
humanity  are  scarcely  intelligible  to  modern  thought.  I  only 
purpose,  before  adducing  the  allegory,  to  present  some  considera- 
tions which  may  show  the  place  it  has  in  the  teachings  of  Plato, 
and  how  it  is  wrought  by  him  into  the  general  conception  of  the 
"  Symposium." 

The  Greek  name  for  philosophy  as  the  love  of  wisdom  fur- 
nishes in  itself  the  thought  which  is  the  germ  of  the  whole  anal- 
ogy. But  absolute  wisdom  is  identified  with  absolute  goodness, 
and  so  with  absolute  beauty,  and  thus  wisdom  as  beauty  is  the 
object  of  the  emotion  of  love,  which  rises  through  its  successive 
stages  to  what  in  Platonic  phrase  is  a  pure  and  divine  affection. 
Socrates  says  in  the  "  Phaedrus,"  God  alone  is  truly  wise  (<ro<£6Y)  ; 
but  man  may  only  be  called  <£iA.6Vo<£os,  or  lover  of  wisdom.  And 
in  other  places  we  are  taught  that  2  "  to  approach  God  as  the  sub- 
stance of  truth  is  science,  as  the  substance  of  goodness  in  truth  is 

*  o 

wisdom,  as  the  substance  of  beauty  in  goodness  and  truth  is  love." 
Thus,  too,  philosophers  are  called  (^1X0x0X01,  or  lovers  of  the  beau- 
tiful, or  simply  lovers  (tpom/coi)  3  ;  and  in  the  "  Symposium  "  So- 


*  Schleiermacher's  Einleitung  zum  Gaslmahl,  p.  380.  Becker  has  a  full 
discussion  of  the  subject  in  his  Charicles,  Exc.  ii.  to  Scene  v.  Jacobs,  Verm. 
Schr.  iii.  212-254,  had  discussed  it  before,  and  more  favorably.  See,  also, 
Grote's  Plato,  ch.  xxiv.  ;  also  Jowett's  Introduction  to  the  Symposium. 

2  Butler's  History  of  A  ncient  Philosophy,  ii.  p.  277. 

8  Phaedrus,  248,  quoted  by  Butler. 


THE   PLATONIC   MYTHS.  243 

I 

crates  declares  that  his  whole  science  is  nothing  but  a  science 
of  love.  Another  element  needs  to  be  added  to  make  the  anal- 
ogy more  complete  between  love  and  the  philosophical  impulse. 
This  impulse  is  never  thought  of  as  limited  in  its  ends  to  the 
philosopher's  self,  but,  in  harmony  with  Plato's  entire  manner  of 
thinking,  as  directed  to  the  production  of  knowledge  and  virtue 
in  others ;  thus,  in  reference  to  the  practical  realization  of  truth, 
it  is  a  generative  impulse.  That  we  may  be  brought  into  proper 
relation  to  our  allegory  we  must  also  first  bring  into  view  some  of 
Plato's  favorite  thoughts  from  the  "  Phaedrus,"  which  on  this  sub- 
ject of  love  is  a  companion  piece  to  the  "  Symposium."  In  the 
"  Phsedrus,"  Plato,  in  order  to  explain  the  origin  of  the  transcen- 
dental ideas,  represents,  also  in  mythical  form,  that  preexistent 
state  of  the  soul  in  which  she  has  directly  seen,  in  the  heaven 
of  true  being,  the  divine  ideas.  With  Plato,  philosophy,  as  all 
higher  life,  springs  from  madness,1  or  the  frenzy  of  inspiration. 
As  there  is  an  inspiration  of  prophecy,  an  inspiration  of  poetry,  so 
in  philosophy  there  is  an  inspiration  of  love.  When  the  remem- 
brance of  those  divine  ideas  which  the  soul  has  seen  in  the  heav- 
enly state  is  awakened  by  the  sight  of  their  earthly  images,  the 
soul  is  rapt  with  amazement.  She  is  beside  herself,  —  borne  away 
by  the  enthusiasm  of  inspiration.  It  is  this  overmastering  might 
of  the  idea  which  causes  that  admiring  wonder  which  Socrates  says 
is  the  feeling  of  the  philosopher  and  the  beginning  of  all  philoso- 
phy, so  that,  as  he  adds,  that  poet  was  a  good  genealogist  who  said 
that  Iris,  the  messenger  of  heaven,  was  the  daughter  of  Wonder ; 
hence,  too,  that  excitement  and  irritation  of  feeling,  those  pangs 
and  pains  described  by  Socrates  with  such  truth  of  humor  as 
undergone  by  the  soul  to  which  has  just  come  the  boding  of  a 
celestial  message  ;  hence,  too,  the  strangeness  and  awkwardness, 
in  sublunary  matters,  of  the  true  philosopher,  just  as  Alcibiades 
wittily  describes  Socrates  as  now  stalking  through  Athens  like 
a  pelican  and  now  standing  in  one  spot  fixed  in  abstraction  of 
thought  all  through  the  day,  and  all  night  long,  and  next  morning 
at  sunrise  seen  standing  there  still.  How  that  this  ideal  inspira- 
tion takes  the  form  of  love  is  ascribed  in  the  "  Phaadrus  "  to  that 
peculiar  splendor  which  distinguishes  the  images  of  the  beautiful 
beyond  those  of  all  other  ideas,  so  that  they  make  the  strongest 
impression  on  the  soul.  This  passage  shines  with  such  a  beauty, 
as  if  a  direct  emanation  from  the  primal  source,  that  we  will 

1  Zeller,  ii.  384. 


244  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

quote  it  as  a  transition  to  the  "  Symposium."  In  quoting  this 
passage  and  other  passages  that  will  follow,  we  may  be  allowed 
to  offer  a  version  which,  without  having  such  merit  as  belongs 
to  Mr.  Jowett's  English,  seems  to  us  to  follow  the  original  more 
closely. 

Plato  says  l  in  describing  the  superior  force  of  the  images  of 
beauty :  — 

"  Of  justice,  temperance,  or  whatever  else  is  dear  to  souls,  the  earthly 
copies  have  no  splendor ;  but  with  our  dull  organs  there  are  few,  and 
these  with  great  difficulty,  who  on  approaching  the  images  behold  the 
model  they  represent.  But  beauty  was  then  indeed  resplendent  to  be- 
hold, when  with  the  happy  choir  of  the  blessed,  we,  following  in  the  train 
of  Jove,  and  others  in  the  train  of  other  gods,  gazed  upon  the  glorious 
sight  and  were  initiated  into  what  one  may  rightly  call  the  most  blessed 
of  all  mysteries;  which  we  celebrated,  ourselves  all  innocent  and  yet 
without  experience  of  all  the  evils  which  awaited  us  in  the  future ;  ad- 
mitted to  visions  innocent  and  simple  and  calm  and  happy,  and  look- 
ing upon  them  in  pure  light,  pure  ourselves,  and  as  yet  unmarked  by 
that  body,  as  we  call  it,  which  we  now  drag  about,  imprisoned  in  it  just 
like  an  oyster.  All  this  out  of  grace  to  memory,  for  whose  dear  sake, 
through  a  fond  longing  for  the  visions  then  seen,  our  speech  has  lingered 
too  long.  But  as  to  beauty,  as  I  said,  it  shone  there,  as  it  went,  among 
those  other  forms ;  and  now  that  we  have  come  to  earth  we  have  appre- 
hended it  through  the  clearest  of  our  senses,  itself  shining  clearest  of  all. 
For  sight  is  the  sharpest  of  all  the  bodily  senses,  and  yet  by  means  of  it 
is  not  wisdom  seen,  for  indeed  all  too  mighty  loves  would  arise  if  of  her 
and  the  other  lovely  ideas  like  brilliant  images  came  to  the  sight ;  but 
now  to  beauty  only  has  fallen  the  lot  to  be  at  once  the  biightest  and  the 
most  lovely." 

Such  is  the  view  given  in  the  "  Phaedrus."  But  in  the  "  Sym- 
posium "  love  is  not  of  beauty  only,  but  also  of  the  production  of 
beauty,  or  of  "  birth  in  beauty ;  "  and  this  is  explained  as  the 
striving  of  the  mortal  nature  for  immortality,  the  necessity  of  its 
nature  for  self-preservation  through  the  ever  new  production  of 
itself.  The  "  Symposium "  is,  to  be  sure,  a  real  Athenian  ban- 
quet, where  wine  is  drunk  in  the  largest  Greek  measures ;  but  yet 
it  is  a  feast  of  reason,  and  the  whole  entertainment  is  Love.  Five 
of  the  guests  have  spoken  in  lofty  discourses  the  praises  of  Love, 
and  all  with  the  approbation  of  the  company,  especially  the  host 
Agathon,  who  has  been  heartily  cheered,  and  pronounced  to  have 
spoken  in  a  manner  worthy  of  himself  and  the  god.  Yet  all  have 

1  Phadrus,  250. 


THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS.  245 

fallen  short  of  the  great  argument.  Socrates  alone,  who  last  of 
all  comes  to  his  turn,  is  able  to  rise  to  its  height,  nor  yet  he  of  any 
wisdom  or  knowledge  of  his  own,  as  he  says  with  the  politeness 
of  a  good  guest,  and  with  his  usual  confession  of  ignorance.  He 
has  been  instructed  in  the  science  of  love  by  Diotima,  a  wise 
woman  of  Mantineia,  who  is  a  priestess  and  inspired,  and  so 
knows  and  can  tell  the  truth ;  and  he  will  tell  the  marvelous  tale 
of  Love  as  he  has  heard  it  from  her  inspired  lips.  It  is  quite 
noticeable  that  in  this  company  of  the  choicest  wits  of  Athenian 
society,  Plato,  through  Socrates,  exalts  a  woman  to  the  chief  place, 
and  makes  her  the  teacher  of  all.  Perhaps  the  simple  reason  is 
that  the  theme  of  discourse  is  love.  But  to  proceed.  In  his  dia- 
lectic way  Socrates  puts  the  questions  to  Agathon  which  Diotima 
once  put  to  him,  and  then  he  gives  the  answers  just  as  they  were 
drawn  out  by  her.  The  chief  answers  were  these  :  As  love  is  of 
the  nature  of  desire,  what  it  desires  is  not  what  it  is  or  has,  for 
no  one  desires  what  he  already  is  or  has.  And  love  is  desire  of 
the  beautiful,  and  so  love  has  not  the  beautiful,  and  as  the  beauti- 
ful is  also  the  good,  Love  in  desiring  the  beautiful  has  not,  but 
desires  the  good.  So,  too,  Socrates  had  said  to  Diotima,  as  Aga- 
thon had  just  now  said  in  his  speech,  that  Love  was  a  god ;  but 
Diotima  had  taught  him  that  Love  was  not  a  god,  but  only  a 
being  intermediate  between  divine  and  human.  On  this  he  had 
begged  to  know  the  parentage  of  Love,  and  the  wise  woman  had 
told  him  the  following  tale  of  his  birth : 1  — 

"At  the  birth  of  Aphrodite  the  gods  held  a  feast,  and  among  the 
guests  was  Resource,  the  son  of  Counsel.  The  feast  over,  Poverty  came 
to  beg,  as  she  knew  of  the  good  cheer  there,  and  she  lingered  about  the 
doors.  Now  Resource,  who  was  very  much  the  worse  for  the  nectar,  — 
for  wine  there  was  then  none,  —  went  into  the  garden  of  Zeus,  and  there 
sank,  overpowered,  to  sleep.  Then  Poverty,  taking  quite  insidious 
means,  on  account  of  her  want  of  resources,  to  get  offspring  from  Re- 
source, lay  down  by  his  side,  and  conceived  Love.  So  it  was  that  Love 
became  the  follower  and  servant  of  Aphrodite,  because  he  was  born  on 
her  birthday,  and  because  by  nature  he  is  a  lover  of  the  beautiful,  and 
Aphrodite  is  beautiful  herself.  Seeing  then  that  Love  is  the  child  of 
Resource  and  Poverty,  he  has  corresponding  fortunes  in  the  world.  In 
the  first  place  he  is  poor,  and  far  from  being  delicate  and  fair,  as  most 
people  suppose,  he  is  rough  and  squalid,  and  goes  barefoot,  and  is  house- 
less, always  lying  on  the  bare  earth,  sleeping  under  the  open  sky,  at 

1  Symposium,  203,  204. 


246  THE   PLATONIC   MYTHS. 

people's  doors  and  on  the  streets,  and  according  to  his  mother's  nature, 
always  a  mate  of  Want.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  taking  after  his  father, 
he  pursues  the  good  and  the  beautiful,  he  is  courageous  and  bold  and 
intent,  a  mighty  hunter,  always  weaving  wiles,  longing  after  intelligence, 
full  of  resources,  philosophizing  his  life  long,  a  terrible  enchanter,  sor- 
cerer, sophist.  Moreover,  by  nature  he  is  neither  immortal  nor  mortal, 
but  in  the  same  day  he  lives  and  flourishes  and  then  dies,  and  then  again 
comes  to  life  again  by  virtue  of  his  father's  nature.  The  resources  he 
gets  flow  away  again,  and  so  love  is  never  without  resources,  and  never  in 
possession  of  wealth.  So  also  he  stands  midway  between  wisdom  and 
ignorance,  for  the  matter  stands  thus  :  No  god  is  a  lover  of  wisdom  or 
desires  to  become  wise  ;  for  he  is  already  wise.  Nor  when  any  one  else 
is  already  wise  is  he  a  seeker  of  wisdom.  And  just  as  little  do  the  igno- 
rant seek  after  wisdom  ;  for  that  is  just  the  evil  of  ignorance,  that  with- 
out being  fair  and  good  and  wise,  it  yet  is  quite  satisfied  with  itself ; 
since  whoever  thinks  himself  not  in  need  of  a  thing  has  of  course  no 
desire  for  it.  '  Who,  then,  Diotima,'  said  Socrates,  '  are  the  lovers  of 
wisdom,  if  neither  the  wise  nor  the  ignorant  ?  '  '  Why  that,'  said  she, 
'  must  be  plain  to  a  child  ;  for  they  are  those  who  are  between  the  two, 
and  of  these,  too,  is  Love.  For  wisdom  belongs  to  the  most  beautiful,  and 
Love  is  of  the  beautiful,  and  so  Love  is  a  philosopher,  or  lover  of  wis- 
dom, and  as  such  stands  between  the  wise  and  the  ignorant.  And  the 
cause  of  this,  too,  is  his  parentage  ;  for  he  is  of  a  father  who  is  wise  and 
wealthy,  and  of  a  mother  who  is  poor  and  ignorant.  Such,  my  dear 
Socrates,  is  the  nature  of  Love.' " 

Thus  it  is  that  Plato  allegorizes  the  genesis  and  nature  of  the 
impulse  of  man  to  wisdom.  It  springs  on  the  one  hand  1  out  of 
the  higher  nature  of  man.  It  is  a  striving,  in  accordance  with 
this  nature,  after  spiritual  and  everlasting  good.  In  the  figure, 
Resource,  the  father  of  Love,  is  the  son  of  Counsel,  or  intelligent 
forethought,  and  so  Love  is  of  a  spiritual,  immortal  kindred  ;  and 
as  all  acquisition,  eyen  of  worldly  good,  is  the  result  of  intelli- 
gence, so  especially  the  acquisition  of  all  higher  good  depends 
upon  the  rational  nature  of  man.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  only 
striving,  and  not  yet  possession,  and  so  presupposes  want  and 
desire.  So  Love  is  the  child  of  Resource  and  Poverty,  and  thus 
a  mean  between  having  and  not  having,  between  aspiration  and 
attainment,  desire  and  real  possession.  The  other  and  higher 
lessons  taught  by  Diotima,  which  are  not  given  in  figurative  form, 
I  will  briefly  add,  but  not  in  Plato's  words.  The  object  of  this 
striving  of  the  human  soul  is  the  good,  or,  yet  nearer,  the  pos- 
1  Zeller,  ii.  385-387. 


THE   PLATONIC   MYTHS.  247 

session  of  the  good,  and  its  everlasting  possession.  The  outward 
condition  of  this  love  is  the  presence  of  the  beautiful ;  for  it  is 
the  beauty  of  spiritual  good  that  kindles  in  the  soul  the  desire  of 
its  lasting  possession.  But  this  love  varies  in  its  degrees  accord- 
ing to  the  various  manifestations  of  beauty.  It  reaches  the  ulti- 
mate end  towards  which  it  is  ever  striving  through  a  gradual 
upward  progression  from  the  imperfect  or  less  perfect  forms  to  the 
more  perfect,  and  finally  to  the  most  perfect  of  all.  The  first  is 
the  love  of  fair  bodily  forms,  first  of  one,  then  of  many  and  of 
all,  in  every  one  of  which  will  be  discerned  one  and  the  same 
quality  of  beauty.  A  higher  is  the  love  of  beautiful  souls,  which 
will  reveal  a  more  precious  beauty  than  any  of  outward  form  ; 
and  such  love  will  show  itself  in  creating  conceptions  of  wisdom 
and  virtue,  and  wise  and  virtuous  character  in  education,  in  art, 
in  legislation.  A  third  is  the  love  which  finds  its  wide  sphere  in 
all  esthetic  science,  in  the  search  and  discovery  of  the  beautiful 
in  whatsoever  form.  And  finally  the  highest  of  all  is  love  itself, 
which  is  fixed  upon  true,  absolute  beauty,  unmixed  with  aught 
material  or  finite,  formless,  unchangeable,  eternal,  and  so  attains 
its  final  end  of  immortal  and  blissful  being. 

"  '  Here,  my  dear  Socrates,'  said  the  stranger  of  Mantineia,1  '  here,  if 
anywhere,  is  for  man  the  life  which  alone  is  worth  living,  in  contemplat- 
ing the  beautiful  itself.  If  of  this  you  once  get  a  vision,  it  will  seem  to 
you  not  after  the  kind  of  gold  and  garments  and  fair  boys  and  youths, 
which  when  you  behold  you  are  beside  yourself  for  amazement,  and  are 
ready,  as  also  are  many  others,  when  seeing  your  loves  and  conversing 
with  them,  neither  to  eat  nor  drink,  if  that  were  possible,  but  only  to  gaze 
upon  them  and  always  be  with- them.  What  then  if  it  were  one's  for- 
tune to  see  beauty  itself  pure  and  unmixed,  and  not  denied  by  human 
flesh  and  colors  and  other  vain  tinsel  of  mortality,  —  the  divine  beauty 
itself  in  its  simplicity  ?  Think  you  that  man's  life  would  be  a  poor  one 
who  was  ever  looking  at  that  and  ever  conversant  with  it  ?  Or  do  you 
not  suppose  that  only  such  a  one,  beholding  beauty  wherewith  one  must 
behold  it,  will  be  able  to  produce  not  images  of  virtue,  as  he  is  not 
attached  to  an  image,  but  realities,  because  he  is  attached  .to  the  real  ? 
But  whoever  produces  and  educates  true  virtue,  to  him  it  belongs  to  be 
dear  to  God,  and  to  be  immortal,  if  any  man  may  be.'  " 

From  this  discussion  and  illustration  of   the  myths  of  Plato 
which  are  allegorical,  I  pass  to  speak  of  the  nature  and  uses  of 
those  which  are  genuine  or  proper  myths.     It  is  peculiar  to  these 
1  Symposium,  211,  212. 


248  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

that  in  them  the  sensible  representation  is  not,  as  in  the  allegory, 
the  embodiment  of  thought  before  grasped  and  fully  appre- 
hended ;  but  the  thought  and  its  poetic  expression  are  coincident. 
They  come  into  being  together,  and  are  not  only  not  separated, 
but  are  inseparable ;  the  story  or  the  narrative  is  in  itself  the 
truth  which  is  taught.  As  in  all  genuine  myths,  so  in  these  of 
Plato,  the  imaginative  form  of  presenting  truth  is  not  the  choice 
of  a  poetic  and  artistic  nature,  but  a  necessity  l  which  is  caused 
by  the  limits  of  existing  knowledge  or  by  the  limitations  of  the 
human  mind.  Plato  resorts  to  it  when  the  subjects  he  would 
treat  are  those  which,  as  in  some  instances,  transcend  his  own 
knowledge  and  the  knowledge  of  his  times,  and  which,  as  in 
others,  transcend  human  experience  and  the  logical  processes  of 
human  reasoning  ;  he  employs  it  when  he  represents  what  for  him 
is  reality  and  truth,  but  for  which  there  has  not  yet  been  gained 
or  cannot  be  gained  at  all  any  adequate  scientific  expression. 

Such  Platonic  myths  are  thus  in  their  relation  to  matters  of 
science  the  strivings  of  a  clear  and  far-seeing  nature  to  peer  into 
the  unknown,  and  to  light  up  by  the  imagination  its  dim,  undis- 
covered regions ;  they  are  theories  in  the  literal  sense  of  that 
word,  sights  of  truth,  descried  by  a  kind  of  prophetic  vision  in 
the  dawn  of  science,  to  be  verified  by  and  by  in  the  revelations 
of  its  perfect  day.  But  the  myths  of  this  class,  which  treat  of 
scientific  truth,  are  far  inferior  in  interest  and  value  to  those 
which  set  in  truly  prophetic  scenes  the  great  spiritual  things  that 
lie  outside  the  range  of  scientific  knowledge,  but  are  reached  and 
apprehended  by  the  instinctive  convictions  of  man's  spiritual 
nature.  They  are  answers  to  the  earnest  questionings  of  the 
soul,  touching  its  origin  and  destiny,  and  the  origin  of  the  world 
in  which  its  present  life  is  going  on ;  they  are  bold  reaches  into 
that  unseen  world  for  which  man  was  made,  and  which  he  is  ever 
nearing,  representations,  by  sensible  imagery,  of  great  thoughts 
that  come  to  all  human  minds,  like  instincts,  unawares.  They  give 
at  once  utterance  and  assurance  to  the  faiths  which  all  men  cher- 
ish as  their  ^inborn  and  most'  precious  possessions  ;  and  though,  as 
affirmed  by  Hegel2  as  the  modern  hierophant  of  the  absolute 
Idea,  they  may  be  confessions  of  the  impotence  of  philosophy, 
they  are  yet  truly  philosophical  as  having  in  them  that  quality  of 
true  wisdom  which  is  content  to  confess  ignorance  in  certain  things, 
but  meets  and  sufficiently  satisfies  universal  human  wants. 
1  Zeller,  ii.  362.  2  Geschi  rf.  pA&  jj.  188,  189. 


THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS.  249 

I  shall  confine  myself  in  illustration  of  this  class  of  myths  to 
those,  by  far  the  most  interesting  and  valuable,  which  shadow 
forth  in  Plato's  view  the  spiritual  condition  and  destiny  of  man. 
His  thoughtful  meditations  on  this  theme  of  transcendent  mo- 
ment come  in  upon  his  mental  vision  in  pictures,  and,  as  they  are 
projected  into  form,  unfold  and  exhibit  so  many  successive  scenes 
or  groups  of  scenes.  In  the  "  Phsedrus,"  as  already  intimated,  they 
are  scenes  of  the  soul's  preexistence ;  in  the  "  Symposium,"  of  its 
present  condition ;  and  in  the  "  Gorgias,"  the  "  Republic,"  and  the 
"  Phaedo,"  where  the  judgment  and  its  retributions  are  portrayed, 
they  are  scenes  of  its  future  destiny ;  and,  taken  together,  they 
form  a  kind  of  trilogy,  after  the  manner  of  the  Grecian  drama, 
representing  in  dramatic  form  the  history  of  the  human  soul. 

It  is  only  these  last  to  which  we  will  now  look,  those  in  which 
Plato,  through  the  light  -of.  his  intuitive  moral  beliefs,  opens  to 
view  the  unseen  world  and  its  retributions.  Let  us  remember  that 
it  is  these  intuitive  beliefs,  —  whether  shining  only  through  their 
own  light,  or  whether  and  how  far  yet  more  illumined  by  that  true 
light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world,  it  is 
not  for  me  to  say,  —  to  which  all  these  teachings  of  Plato  are  to 
be  ultimately  referred.  Remember,  too,  that  these  teachings  all 
presuppose  Plato's  faith,  not  only  in  the  spiritual  nature  of  the 
soul,  but  also  in  its  immortality.  This  faith  in  the  soul's  immor- 
tality, whether  a  conclusion  or  an  intuition,  seems  to  have  been 
present  in  the  consciousness  of  Plato  clear  and  steadfast  as  now 
in  any  Christian  consciousness ;  and  it  were  well,  indeed,  if  for 
all  Christian  minds  this  faith  had  a  like  vital  force  and  a  like 
supreme  moral  interest.  These  mythical  narratives  are  too  long 
for  entire  quotation.  They  also  differ  from  each  other  in  contain- 
ing more  or  less  fullness  of  detail,  and  in  being  more  or  less  per- 
fectly elaborated  in  form ;  and  to  some  of  the  details  Plato  evi- 
dently attaches  no  essential  moral  value.  I  must  confine  myself 
to  such  portions  as  illustrate  those  central  truths  which  they  all 
have  in  common. 

•  In  all  we  discover  the  general  view,  that  the  condition  of  souls 
in  the  other  world,  whether  it  be  happy  or  unhappy,  is  of  the  na- 
ture of  retribution,  and,  moreover,  a  retribution  which,  though 
assigned  by  judgment  and  sentence,  yet  is  determined  in  the  case 
of  each  individual  soul  by  the  character  it  has  formed  during  the 
probation  of  its  earthly  life.  It  is  remarkable  with  what  clearness 
the  future  of  the  soul  is  portrayed  as  only  the  carrying  out  of  the 


250  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

process  of  education  begun  upon  earth.  The  soul,  when  unclothed 
of  the  body,  appears  in  the  presence  of  its  judges  with  its  charac- 
ter visibly  stamped  upon  it,  and  goes  straight  to  the  lot  and  place 
appointed  for  it  by  the  eternal  laws  of  moral  being.  Let  us  note 
in  the  "  Gorgias  "  the  telling  of  this  truth  ;  and  let  us  remember, 
while  we  read,  in  order  to  keep  in  mind  the  moral  ends  which 
these  myths  subserve,  those  words  of  Socrates  which  immediately 
precede  it.  He  has  just  said : 1  "  For  death  itself  no  man  but  an 
utter  fool  and  coward  fears,  but  it  is  the  doing  wrong  that  he 
fears,  for  a  soul  indeed  to  go  to  the  other  world  loaded  with  many 
wrong-doings,  —  that  is  the  last  of  all  evils ;  and  if  you  are  will- 
ing I  will  tell  you  a  story  to  show  that  this  is  so."  The  story  fol- 
lows then  on  this  wise  :  — 

"  In  the  time  of  Cronos  there  was  this  law  which,  as  formerly,  so  now 
also  obtains,  that  whoever  had  lived  justly  and  piously  should  at  death 
go  to  the  isles  of  the  blest,  and  dwell  there  in  all  happiness  beyond  the 
reach  of  evil,  but  that  whoever  had  lived  in  injustice  and  impiety  should 
depart  to  the  prison-house  of  vengeance  and  punishment,  called  Tartarus. 
And  in  the  time  of  Cronos,  indeed,  and  yet  later  when  Zeus  was  holding 
the  rule,  both  the  judges  and  the  judged  were  still  alive,  and  the  judg- 
ment of  the  former  was  given  on  the  very  day  when  the  latter  were  to 
die.  So  the  judgments  were  ill  given.  Therefore  Pluto  and  the  author- 
ities from  the  isles  of  the  blest  came  to  Zeus  and  said  that  men  came  to 
both  places  undeservedly.  Then,  said  Zeus,  I  myself  will  see  to  it  that 
this  does  not  take  place  in  future  ;  for  the  judgments  are  ill  administered, 
for  they  who  are  judged  are  still  clothed,  because  they  are  alive ;  many, 
therefore,  who  have  wicked  souls  are  indued  with  fair  bodies  and  with 
rank  and  wealth,  and  when  the  judgment  occurs,  many  witnesses  come 
forward  and  testify  that  these  have  lived  well.  The  judges  are  put  in 
awe  by  these,  and  besides  they,  too,  when  judging,  are  clothed,  their  eyes 
and  ears  and  their  whole  bodies  acting  as  a  blind  to  their  souls.  All  this 
now  stands  in  the  way,  alike  the  clothes  of  the  judges,  and  the  clothes  of 
the  judged.  In  the  first  place,  then,  I  must  see  that  an  end  is  put  to 
men's  having  a  knowledge  of  death  beforehand,  and  indeed  Prometheus 
has  already  been  told  to  have  this  stopped ;  then  they  must  be  judged 
when  unclothed,  for  they  must  be  judged  when  they  are  dead ;  and  the 
judge  must  be  unclothed  by  death,  so  that  with  the  soul  itself  he  may  be- 
hold the  soul  itself  of  each  one,  immediately  after  death,  when  bereft  of 
all  his  kindred,  and  all  that  fair  adornment  left  behind  wherewith  on 
earth  he  was  arrayed,  in  order  that  the  judgment  may  be  just.  Indeed, 
having  come  to  know  all  these  things  earlier  than  you,  I  have  made  my 
sons  the  judges,  two  from  Asia,  Minos  and  Rhadamanthus,  and  one  from 

1  Gorgias,  523,  E. 


THE   PLATONIC   MYTHS.  251 

Europe,  ^Eacus.  These,  after  their  death,  shall  judge  in  that  meadow 
where  three  ways  meet,  and  out  of  which  two  roads  lead,  the  one  to  the 
isles  of  the  blest,  the  other  to  Tartarus.  But  to  Minos  I  shall  assign  the 
prerogative  of  arbitration  in  case  the  two  others  are  in  doubt,  in  order 
that  the  judgment  may  be  as  just  as  possible  touching  the  journey  that 
men  must  take." 

Another  passage  may  be  quoted  to  illustrate  what  has  been  said 
above  of  the  character  which  the  soul  carries  upon  itself  in  the 
other  world :  — 

"  When 1  these  have  come  to  the  judge,  Rhadamanthus  places  them  be- 
fore him,  and  gazes  upon  the  soul  of  each,  not  knowing  whose  it  is ;  but 
very  often  laying  hold  of  the  soul  of  the  great  king  or  of  some  other  king 
or  ruler,  he  sees  nothing  sound  in  it,  but  finds  it  fouled  by  scourges,  and 
full  of  scars  from  perjuries,  the  stamps  which  each  one's  conduct  has  im- 
printed upon  his  soul,  and  so  he  sees  all  crooked  on  account  of  lying  and 
vain-boasting,  and  nothing  straight,  because  his  life  has  lacked  the  train- 
ing of  virtue ;  he  sees  this  soul  all  full  of  baseness  and  deformity  by  rea- 
son of  lice'nse  and  luxury  and  arrogance  and  incontinence ;  and  having 
seen  it,  he  straightway  sends  it  in  dishonor  to  the  prison  where  it  is  to 
undergo  the  sufferings  meet  for  it." 

The  general  view  given  in  these  passages  we  find  also  in  the 
"Phaedo  "  and  in  the  story  of  Er  in  the  "Republic ; "  but  with  dif- 
ferences worth  noting  in  the  conceptions  of  the  judges  and  of  the 
time  and  manner  of  judging,  and  especially  in  the  description  of 
the  abodes  of  the  blest  and  the  seats  of  torture  for  the  wicked. 
In  the  "  Phsedo  "  Socrates  adduces  his  story  to  enforce  the  same 
truth  as  in  the  "  Gorgias."  "  The  soul,"  he  says,2  "  comes  to  Hades, 
bringing  with  it  nothing  but  education  and  nurture,  and  these 
indeed  are  said  greatly  to  help  or  to  harm  the  departed  at  the 
very  outset  of  his  pilgrimage  thither."  Then  he  tells  Simmias3 
that  the  story  is  that  after  death  every  soul  is  conducted  by  its 
genius  to  the  place  where  the  dead  are  gathered  together  before 
they  go  to  Hades  under  the  charge  of  the  appointed  guide.  Now 
the  wise  and  well-ordered  soul  follows  in  the  path  conscious  of 
her  position ;  but  the  impure  soul,  yet  turning  with  longing  desire 
for  the  body  and  the  world  of  sense,  is  at  length  forcibly  carried 
away  by  the  attendant  genius.  And  when  such  a  soul  reaches  the 
gathering  place,  every  one  flees  from  it  and  shuns  it ;  without  com- 
panion and  guide  it  wanders  about  in  dire  distress,  till  at  last  it  is 
borne  to  its  own  fitting  habitation.  But  the  pure  and  just  soul 

1  Gorgias,  524,  E,  525,  A.  2  Phcedo,  107,  D.  3  Ibid.  108. 


252  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

which  has  gone  through  life  under  the  companionship  and  guid- 
ance of  the  gods  comes  also  to  its  own  proper  home. 

But  there  is  a  more  marked  difference  between  the  "  Gorgias " 
and  the  "  Phsedo  "  in  the  conceptions  of  retribution  they  respectively 
present  in  the  situation  and  character  of  the  abodes  of  the  good 
and  of  the  bad.  While  in  the  former  these  are  only  generally 
mentioned  as  the  isles  of  the  blest  and  as  Tartarus,  in  the  latter 
they  are  described  with  utmost  distinctness  even  of  geographical 
detail,  and  are  made  all  glorious  and  heavenly  or  dismal  and  awful 
by  the  most  affluent  material  imagery,  so  that  they  seem  like  dis- 
tant pagan  glimpses  of  apocalyptic  vision.  The  heaven  of  Plato 
is  like  and  yet  unlike  the  Elysian  fields  of  Homer  or  Hesiod's 
isles  of  the  blest.  Like  them  it  is  on  the  earth  indeed,  but  not  as 
they  in  far-off  land  or  ocean  of  the  setting  sun,  but  on  some  upper 
supernal  earth,  in  regions  that  come  so  near  the  heavenly  world 
that  all  nature  in  it  shines  with  a  celestial  beauty,  and  its  dwell- 
ers walk  with  the  gods.  Socrates  tells  his  hearers  1  that,  there  are 
many  marvelous  places  of  the  earth,  and  very  different  from  any 
that  geographers  tell  us  of.  He  is  persuaded  that  the  earth  is 
very  vast,  and  that  those  who  live  along  the  borders  of  the  sea  in 
the  region  from  the  Phasis  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  are  like  ants 
or  frogs  living  about  a  marsh,  and  inhabit  only  a  small  part  of  it, 
and  that  many  others  live  in  many  other  such  places.  There  are 
many  other  hollows  like  this  of  ours  where  the  water  and  mist  and 
air  gather,  but  the  true  earth  is  pure  and  lies  in  the  pure  heavens, 
where  are  also  the  stars.  But  we  who  live  down  in  these  hollows 
fancy  we  are  on  the  surface  of  the  earth ;  very  much  as  if  creatures 
down  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  were  to  fancy  they  were  on  its  sur- 
face, and  that  when  they  saw  through  the  water  were  to  think  the 
sea  to  be  the  heavens.  If  we  could  only  take  wings  like  a  bird 
and  fly  upward,  like  a  fish  who  sometimes  puts  his  head  out  and 
sees  this  world  for  a  moment,  we  should  see  a  world  beyond,  and 
that  is  the  true  upper  earth.  And  then  he  goes  on  to  picture  that 
upper  realm.  There  the  trees  and  the  flowers  and  the  fruits  and 
all  other  things  that  grow  are  all  fairer  than  any  here,  and  there 
are  hills  and  stones  in  them  clearer  and  fairer  than  our  most  pre- 
cious emeralds  and  jaspers  and  other  gems ;  there  are  hills,  indeed, 
which  are  solid  gems,  of  which  our  jewels  are  only  little  frag- 
ments. And  there  are  animate  beings,  too,  and  men,  some  in  a 
middle  region,  others  dwelling  about  the  atmosphere,  as  we  do 

i  Phcedo,  109-113. 


THE  PLATONIC   MYTHS.  253 

about  the  sea,  and  others  on  islands  which  the  atmosphere  encir- 
cles ;  for  our  atmosphere  is  their  sea,  and  their  atmosphere  is  the 
ether.  Then,  too,  they  have  temples  and  sacred  places  where  the 
gods  really  dwell,  and  men  see  them  and  hear  them,  and  commune 
with  them,  and  they  see  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  just  as  they 
are,  and  all  their  other  blessedness  is  like  to  this.  From  this 
bright  supernal  heaven  the  seer  now  passes  to  the  dread  abodes  of 
the  wicked,  in  the  lower  parts  of  the  earth.  In  the  earth  are 
deeper  and  vaster  hollows,  and  vastest  and  deepest  of  all  is  Tar- 
tarus, a  huge  chasm,  which  pierces  its  inmost  depth,  and  thither 
are  ever  flowing  immeasurable  rivers  of  fire  and  torrents  of  mud. 
Then  follows  the  description  of  the  four  rivers  of  Tartarus,  a  pas- 
sage which  I  may  perhaps  give  briefest  and  best  from  that  kin- 
dred one  of  Milton's,1  which  indeed  the  Christian  poet  seems  to 
have  wrought  from  the  pages  of  the  pagan  philosopher  into  his 
picture  of  the  lower  world.  With  his  fine  sense  for  language  the 
poet  gives,  with  the  names  themselves,  their  moral  import :  — 

"  Along  the  banks 

Of  four  infernal  rivers,  that  disgorge 
Into  the  burning  lake  their  baleful  streams : 
Abhorred  Styx,  the  flood  of  deadly  hate ; 
Sad  Acheron,  of  sorrow,  black  and  deep; 
Cocytus,  named  of  lamentation  loud 
Heard  on  the  rueful  stream;  fierce  Phlegethon 
Whose  waves  of  torrent  fire  inflame  with  rage." 

Such  in  the  view  of  Socrates  is  the  nature  of  the  other  world ; 
and  to  these  upper  or  to  these  lower  realms  the  dead  are  brought 
after  they  have  been  judged  and  sentenced  according  to  their 
deeds. 

Yet  this  general  doctrine  of  retribution  unfolds  itself  still  more 
in  its  applications  to  individual  souls  among  the  good  and  among 
the  bad  according  to  the  differences  of  their  lives  on  earth ;  in  the 
one  class,  higher  heights  of  goodness  and  blessedness  with  some 
than  with  others,  and  in  the  other  deeper  depths  of  sin  and  misery. 
Both  in  the  "Gorgias"  and  in  the  "Phsedo"  some  of  the  sinful  are 
represented  as  curable,  such  as  have  been  neither  very  good  nor 
very  bad,  and  for  these  a  place  of  purgatory  is  assigned,  and  for 
them  punishment  is  corrective,  and  even  as  on  earth  suffering  is 
remedial.  Their  relief  from  suffering  seems  also  to  be  conditioned 
by  the  forgiveness  of  those  whom  they  have  wronged  on  earth. 
1  Paradise  Lost,  ii.  288,  sqq. 


254  THE   PLATONIC   MYTHS. 

Thus  in  the  "  Gorgias "  l  it  is  said :  "  But  some  are  benefited  in 
the  punishment  they  have  received  alike  from  gods  and  men,  and 
such  are  they  who  have  been  guilty  of  curable  sins ;  yet  only  by 
pains  and  sufferings  does  the  benefit  accrue  to  them  both  here 
and  in  the  lower  world,  for  it  is  not  possible  otherwise  to  be  set 
free  from  iniquity."  And  still  more  clearly  in  the  "Phaedo:"2 — 

"Those  who  are  adjudged  guilty  of  sins  curable  indeed  but  great, 
as  for  instance  doing  violence  in  a  moment  of  anger  to  a  father  or 
a  mother,  and  have  gone  sorrowing  for  it  the  rest  of  their  lives,  or 
who  in  like  circumstances  have  become  murderers,  these  must  needs  be 
cast  into  Tartarus,  but  after  a  stay  there  of  a  year  the  wave  casts  them 
forth,  the  homicides  into  the  Cocytus,  the  patricides  and  the  matricides 
into  the  Pyriphlegethon ;  and  when  by  way  of  these  they  have  come 
nigh  the  Acherusian  Lake,  they  cry  aloud  and  call  upon  those  whom 
they  have  slain  or  wronged,  beseeching  them  to  allow  them  to  come 
out  of  the  river  into  the  lake  ;  and  if  they  prevail,  they  come  out 
and  are  set  free  from  their  evils ;  but  if  not,  they  are  conveyed  back 
into  Tartarus,  and  thence  again  into  the  rivers,  nor  cease  to  suffer  these 
things  till  they  prevail  by  their  entreaties  over  those  whom  they  have 
wronged." 

But  on  the  other  hand  Socrates  teaches  that  there  are  souls 
incurably  sinful,  whose  sin  has  become  by  the  force  of  evil  habit 
so  wrought  into  the  texture  of  their  being  as  to  be  past  all  healing ; 
for  these  suffering  is  remediless,  and  for  themselves  punitive,  and 
in  respect  to  others,  monitory.  No  words  of  Scripture  teach  more 
clearly  or  vividly  than  Plato's,  in  respect  to  such  souls,  the  doctrine 
of  everlasting  punishment ;  you  seem  to  hear,  as  you  read,  a 
distant  prophecy  of  "  the  worm  that  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  that  is 
not  quenched."  In  the  "Phaedo"3  this  is  taught  in  a  single  sharp 
sentence  :  "  But  those  who  are  found  incurable  on  account  of  the 
magnitude  of  their  crimes,  by  the  commission  of  many  and  great 
acts  of  sacrilege,  or  of  unjust  and  iniquitous  murders  or  the  like, 
—  these  a  fitting  lot  hurls  into  Tartarus,  whence  they  never  come 
out."  But  in  the  "  Gorgias,"  and  especially  in  the  "  Republic,"  this 
teaching  is  drawn  out  with  far  more  fullness  and  vividness  of 
statement  and  illustration.  To  quote  first  from  the  "  Gorgias : "  4  — 

"  But  those  who  have  perpetrated  the  most  unrighteous  crimes,  and  on 
account  of  such  deeds  have  become  wholly  incurable,  these  derive  no 
longer  any  benefit  from  their  sufferings,  but  others  derive  benefit  from 
them,  when  they  see  them  hung  up  as  examples  in  the  prison-house  in 
Hades,  as  a  spectacle  and  warning  to  all  the  unrighteous." 

i  525.  2  113j  114  s  n3)  E.  4  525,  C. 


THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS.  255 

And  these  souls  of  bad  eminence  in  guilt  Plato  thinks  are 
usually  those  of  tyrants  and  kings  and  public  men  ;  for  these 
have  the  power  of  doing  wrong,  which  is  denied,  fortunately  for 
themselves,  to  persons  of  humbler  quality.  He  cites  Homer  for 
the  truth  of  this,  for  he  always  describes  the  sufferers  of  endless 
punishment  as  the  kings  and  potentates  of  the  earth,  such  as 
Tantalus  and  Sisyphus,  while  a  Thersites,  or  a  private  person  such 
as  he,  is  never  so  described.  A  far  more  fearful  passage  occurs 
in  the  "  Republic  ;  "  but  for  its  full  understanding  a  preliminary 
word  is  necessary  touching  the  general  conception  of  the  story 
there  given  of  Er  the  Pamphylian.  This  story  is  the  completest 
in  thought  and  form  of  all  Plato's  myths.  It  is  the  peculiarity 
of  it,  that  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  represented  as  passing  after 
the  judgment  a  pilgrimage  of  a  thousand  years  in  the  upper  or 
in  the  lower  earth,  and  then  returning  to  this  world  to  enter 
upon  a  new  probation.  Er  had  died  in  battle  and  had  lain  on 
the  funeral  pyre  twelve  days,  when  he  came  to  life  again  and 
told  all  he  had  seen  in  the  other  world.  He  had  gone  with 
many  others  to  a  strange  place,  where  there  were  two  openings 
near  together  in  the  earth  beneath,  and  two  like  ones  in  the 
heaven  above.  Judges  sat  in  the  space  between,  and  bade  the 
just  ascend  the  heavenly  way  on  the  right  hand  with  the  seal 
of  their  judgment  set  upon  them  in  front,  and  the  unjust  having 
their  seal  on  their  back  to  descend  by  the  way  on  the  left.  And 
then  as  he  stood  there  he  saw  some  coming  down  after  their 
thousand  years  from  the  other  heavenly  opening,  and  others  coming 
up  from  the  other  opening  in  the  earth,  and  there  they  rested 
on  the  meadow,  and  he  heard  them  tell  one  another  of  all  they 
had  respectively  experienced.  The  spirits  from  heaven  spoke  of 
glorious  sights  and  of  bliss  beyond  compare,  while  the  spirits 
from  the  lower  earth  told  with  sighs  and  tears  their  tales  of 
dreadful  suffering.  For  every  deed  of  wrong  a  tenfold  suffering 
had  been  endured,  and  all  deeds  of  justice  and  goodness  had 
been  rewarded  in  like  proportion.  And  there  he  had  heard  one 
ask  another  of  the  fate  of  Ardiaeus,  the  notorious  tyrant  of  Pam- 
phylia,  who  on  earth  had  committed  so  many  atrocious  crimes ; 
and  the  answer  was,  "  He  is  not  coming  up,  and  he  will  never 
come."  And  then  he  told  in  support  of  his  words  a  terrible 
sight  he  had  seen.  Just  when  he  was  nearing  the  mouth  of 
the  cave,  and  was  on  the  point  of  ascending  he  saw  Ardiaeus 
and  other  despots  witn  him  ;  and  when  they  approached,  and 


256  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

fancied  they  too  were  coming  up,  the  mouth  uttered  a  fearful 
roar,  as  was  usual  when  any  incurable  sinner  tried  to  ascend, 
and  suddenly  appeared  some  wild  men  of  fiery  aspect,  and  seized 
Ardiseus  and  the  others,  and  bound  them  hand  and  foot,  threw 
them  down  and  flayed  them  with  scourges,  and  dragged  them 
along  the  road,  carding  them  on  thorns  like  wool,  and  telling 
all  passers-by  what  were  their  crimes,  and  that  they  were  again  to 
be  cast  into  Tartarus. 

If  finally  we  turn  to  the  other  side  of  this  picture  of  the  other 
world,  we  notice  as  very  remarkable  the  simple  brevity  with  which 
Plato  treats  the  blessed  lot  of  the  righteous  as  they  enter  upon 
their  everlasting  rest.  In  the  "  Gorgias  " l  he  says  of  the  judge 
Rhadamanthus :  — 

"  And  sometimes  when  he  has  looked  upon  some  soul  that  has  lived  in 
holiness  and  truth,  whether  of  a  private  man  or  some  one  else,  generally, 
as  I  should  say,  of  a  lover  of  wisdom,  who  in  his  life  has  done  his  own 
work,  and  has  not  been  a  busybody  in  many  matters,  he  is  filled  with 
joy,  and  sends  it  to  the  isles  of  the  blest." 

And  in  the  "  Phjedo :  "  2  — 

"  And  those  who  seem  to  have  been  distinguished  by  the  holiness  of 
their  lives,  these  are  they  who  are  liberated  from  these  places  on  earth, 
and,  set  free  as  it  were  from  a  prison-house,  rise  upward  to  their  pure 
home,  and  dwell  in  that  upper  earth." 

And  then  he  adds 3  the  thought  that  a  yet  fairer  lot  awaits  the 
select  holy  souls  :  — 

"  And  of  these  such  as  have  attained  sufficient  purity  by  the  love  of 
wisdom  live  henceforth  without  bodies,  and  in  mansions  more  beautiful, 
which  it  were  not  easy  to  make  visible,  and  of  which  time  now  fails  me 
to  tell." 

With  one  or  two  remarks  I  will  close  this  discussion  of  the 
myths  of  Plato. 

And  first  let  us  not  fail  to  observe,  as  in  accordance  with  all 
that  has  been  said  of  the  tendency  of  Plato's  teachings,  the  practical 
conclusions  which  Socrates  reaches  and  enforces  at  the  end  of 
these  narratives.  Thus,  for  instance,  he  concludes  the  "  Gorgias  " 
with  these  words : 4  — 

"  And  of  what  I  have  said,  supposing  that  all  the  rest  were  refuted,  this 

remains  firm,  tbat  the  doing  of  injustice  is  more  to  be  avoided  than  the 

suffering  of  it,  and  that  above  all  else  not  the  seeming  to  be  good,  but 

the  being  good  ought  to  be  the  zealous  aim  of  every  man  in  private  and 

1  526,  C.          3  114,  B.          »  Phcedo,  1141,  C.          4  527,  B,  C. 


THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS.  257 

in  public  life ;  and  that  if  a  man  have  in  any  respect  done  wrong  he  is 
to  be  chastened,  and  that  the  next  best  thing  to  a  man  being  just  is  the 
becoming  so  through  the  chastening  of  punishment.  Be  persuaded,  then, 
and  follow  me,  where  you  will  be  happy  alike  in  life  and  in  death." 

And  so,  though  more  briefly,  in  the  "  Phsedo  :  "  1  — 

"  On  account  of  these  things  we  have  gone  through  with,  we  ought, 

Simmias,  to  strive  in  all  ways  to  be  partakers,  in  this  life,  of  virtue  and 

wisdom.     Noble  is  the  reward,  and  the  hope  great." 

And  how  nobly  he  ends  the  more  elaborate  myth  in  the  "  Re- 
public," 2  the  noble  ending,  too,  of  that  longest  and  greatest  of  all 
the  dialogues :  — 

"  And  so,  Glaucon,  the  story  was  saved  and  not  lost ;  and  if  we  believe 
it,  it  will  save  us,  and  we  shall  cross  well  the  river  of  Lethe,  and  not 
taint  our  souls.  Yes,  if  we  all  follow  these  words,  believing  the  soul  to 
be  immortal,  and  capable  alike  of  all  good  and  evil,  we  shall  ever  follow 
the  upward  way,  and  always  practice  justice  and  wisdom,  that  we  may 
be  dear  to  ourselves  and  to  the  gods  while  we  remain  here,  and  also 
when  we  receive  our  reward,  even  as  the  men  at  the  games  who  carry 
off  the  prizes  and  go  round  to  gather  the  gifts,  and  that  we  may  fare 
well  both  here  and  in  that  thousand  years'  pilgrimage  we  have  just 
described." 

It  is  also  to  be  observed  how  these  myths  which  pertain  to  the 
hereafter  have  for  Plato  all  the  force  of  truth  and  reality,  and  so 
as  the  utterances  of  his  best  wisdom  and  knowledge  are  taught  in 
the  form  of  historical  narrative.  These  things,  or  such  things  as 
these,  he  believes  to  be  facts ;  and  he  tells  them,  we  might  almost 
say  he  reveals  them,  as  facts.  Towards  the  end  of  the  "Gorgias"3 
Socrates  says :  — 

"  For  my  part,  Callicles,  I  have  faith  in  these  narratives  ;  and  I  look  to 
be  found  of  the  judge  in  that  day  with  a  soul  all  undefiled.  Having 
bidden  farewell  to  the  honors  that  most  men  covet,  and  looking  at  truth, 
I  shall  make  my  best  endeavors  after  the  utmost  excellence  of  being, 
alike  during  life,  and  at  death,  when  for  me  that  time  shall  come." 

These  noble  answers  to  the  universal  questionings  of  the  human 
heart  touching  the  hereafter  have  not  lost  for  us,  though  we  are 
blessed  with  a  divine  answer,  their  interest  and  value.  Across  the 
chasm  of  ages  of  time,  across  the  wide  interval  that  parts  the 
religion  of  Christ  from  all  religions  of  men,  it  is  good  to  hold 
converse  with  one  who,  like  Plato,  found  in  the  very  nature  of 
the  human  spirit  and  its  instinctive  aspirations  the  sure  promise 
of  an  immortal  life  ;  who  himself  aimed  and  exhorted  all  others 
1  114,  C.  2  X,  621,  C.  »  526,  D. 


258  THE  PLATONIC  MYTHS. 

to  value  the  soul  above  all  price,  and  so  to  inform  and  enrich  it  by 
all  knowledge  and  goodness  as  to  fit  it  for  its  true  and  high  des- 
tiny. And  these  teachings  find  their  peculiar  and  crowning  inter- 
est as  given  by  Plato  the  disciple  in  the  last  words  of  his  master 
Socrates,  in  the  last  hours  of  that  great  master's  earthly  life, 
when  standing  on  the  very  border  of  that  life  and  of  the  life  to 
come  he  was  now  to  put  to  the  crucial  test  the  central  truth  of  all 
those  teachings,  "  that  no  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man  in  life 
or  in  death."  And  well  and  worthily  did  he  endure  the  test. 
When  all  about  him  were  troubled  and  in  despair,  he  only  was 
serenely  calm  and  full  of  hope.  When  as  a  criminal  condemned 
to  die,  and  soon  to  meet  his  fate,  he  would  have  seemed  to  need  the 
comfort  of  others,  it  was  his  alone  to  comfort  all  that  sorrowful 
and  sorrowing  prison  company ;  and  all  his  comforting  thoughts 
and  words  came  from  the  very  source  of  their  grief,  from  that 
death  which  in  his  view  was  no  evil,  but  rather  an  unspeakable 
good.  All  the  noisy  clamor  of  the  outside  world,  the  rude  dis- 
cords of  unbelieving  and  gainsaying  men  he  heeded  not,  he 
scarcely  heard,  his  ears  already  catching  the  notes  of  that  celestial 
harmony  on  which  he  was  meditating  and  discoursing.  And  what 
sweet  and  musical  words  are  those  which  he  uttered  in  that  part- 
ing conversation :  — 

"  You  seem  to  think  me  poorer  in  prophecy  than  the  swans  ;  for  these 
when  they  are  aware  that  they  are  to  die,  having  sung  all  their  life  long, 
sing  then  more  than  ever,  rejoicing  that  they  are  to  go  away  to  the  god 
whose  servants  they  are.  But  men,  because  of  their  own  fear  of  death, 
falsely  say  of  the  swans  that,  lamenting  death,  they  sing  out  their  life 
for  grief,  not  considering  that  no  bird  sings  when  it  is  cold  or  hungry  or 
suffering  from  any  other  pain,  not  the  nightingale  itself,  or  the  swallow 
or  the  hoopoe,  which  are  said  indeed  by  men  to  sing  a  song  of  lament ; 
but  it  appears  to  me  that  neither  these  sing  for  grief,  nor  the  swans 
either.  Rather,  as  I  think,  do  these  swans  then  sing  and  rejoice  more 
than  ever  before  because,  being  Apollo's  birds,  they  are  gifted  with 
prophecy,  and  know  beforehand  the  good  things  of  another  world.  And 
I  too  seem  to  myself  a  fellow-servant  of  the  swans,  and  a  consecrated 
servant  of  the  same  god,  and  to  have  received  from  my  lord  no  less  than 
these  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  so  to  be  departing  from  life  just  as 
cheerfully  as  they." 

"  Such  was  the  end  "  [and  these  are  the  last  words  of  the  "  Phaedo  "], 
"  such  was  the  end,  Echecrates,  of  our  friend,  of  whom  I  may  say  that 
he  was  the  best  and  the  wisest  and  most  just  of  all  the  men  whom  I 
have  known." 


THE   RELATION   OF  PLATO'S   PHILOSOPHY  TO 
CHRISTIAN  TRUTH. 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  ALUMNI  OF  NEWTON  THE- 
OLOGICAL INSTITUTION,  JUNE  10,  1873,  AND  PRINTED  IN  THE 
"  BAPTIST  QUARTERLY." 

I  HAVE  read  somewhere  of  a  learned  statesman  of  England, 
that  he  was  wont  to  call  the  Dialogues  of  Plato  the  most  beauti- 
ful book  in  the  world,  after  the  Bible.  Some  may  count  this  only 
the  expression  of  a  fond  admiration ;  and  yet,  what  uninspired 
thought  of  man  makes  nearer  approaches  to  the  Bible,  in  its  con- 
ceptions of  virtue  and  virtuous  character,  than  that  which  shines 
out  upon  us  from  these  dialogues  ?  And  when  we  think  of  the 
writer,  and  of  the  principal  speaker  in  them,  what  relation  do  we 
recall  of  master  and  pupil  outside  the  life  of  the  New  Testament 
so  luminous  with  moral  beauty,  and  so  fruitful  of  elevating  influ- 
ence, as  that  of  Socrates  and  Plato?  Memorable  was  that  day, 
when  the  youthful  Plato,  his  fine  genius  just  flowering  into  poe- 
try and  beautiful  letters,  was  brought  by  his  companions  to  So- 
crates, and,  when  listening  to  the  new  teacher,  was  seized  with 
such  a  view  of  the  true  ends  of  Athenian  and  all  human  life, 
that  he  straightway  forsook  all  his  young  dreams  of  literary  am- 
bition, and  followed  his  acknowledged  master,  drawn  by  an  irre- 
sistible moral  attraction.  That  day  determined  for  Plato  the 
course  of  his  long  after-life.  It  marked  his  conversion  to  philoso- 
phy, and  to  philosophy  in  the  Socratic  sense  —  not  as  professed 
wisdom,  but  as  the  studious  love  of  wisdom.  It  was  a  lifelong 
search  for  truth,  and  a  search  no  less  ardent  in  its  moral  aims 
than  intense  in  its  intellectual  effort.  It  is  this  devotion  to  truth 
for  the  truth's  sake,  so  religiously  sought,  so  largely  found,  by 
virtue  of  which,  far  more  than  by  aught  else,  Plato  was  supreme 
in  Grecian  thought  during  the  forty  years  of  his  career  as  Master 
of  the  Academy,  and  in  all  the  ages  since  has  ruled  from  his  urn 
the  spirits  of  men.  For  us,  too,  in  these  later  Christian  times, 
his  writings  have  a  like  value  and  interest,  which  commend  them 
to  our  thoughtful  study. 


260  PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

I  propose,  then,  that  we  consider  some  of  the  relations  of 
Plato's  thought  to  Christian  truth.  And  let  ine  state  from  what 
point  of  view  I  wish  to  treat  in  a  brief  discussion  so  large  a 
theme.  It  is  something  familiar  to  the  experience  of  the  Christian 
student,  that  he  is  wont  to  compare  the  teachings  of  those  an- 
cient writers  to  whom  he  owes  so  much  of  his  culture,  with  the 
words  of  Jesus,  to  whom  he  owes  the  incomparably  higher  debt 
of  his  religious  hopes  and  faith.  In  accordance  with  such  expe- 
rience, I  wish  only  to  offer  some  views  of  what  we  find  in  Plato's 
thought,  with  which  we  can  have  sympathy  as  Christians,  and 
of  what  we  miss  there,  and  can  find  in  Christ,  and  in  Christ 
alone. 

As  a  first  and  preliminary  view,  I  remark,  that  we  find  in 
the  spiritual  character  of  Plato's  philosophy  a  near  and  most 
friendly  relation  to  Christian  truth.  That  is  a  noble  conception 
of  Plato  which  Raphael  has  wrought  into  his  grand  picture  of 
"  The  School  of  Athens  "  —  where  the  philosopher  stands,  the 
central  figure  of  that  august  group  of  Grecian  sages,  his  lifted 
right  hand  pointing  to  heaven.  So,  too,  is  he  pictured  by  the  poet 
Goethe,  as  a  genius  ever  tending  upward,  and  striving  to  kindle 
in  every  breast  the  same  soaring  love  for  the  beauty  of  spiritual 
truth.  How  true  to  Plato's  nature  and  life  are  these  conceptions 
of  art !  And  even  so  on  a  broader  canvas,  on  the  larger  page 
of  history,  he  stands  there  ever  to  the  inward  eye,  pointing  not 
Grecian  sages  alone,  but  all  thoughtful  minds,  above  the  world 
of  matter  and  sense,  to  a  world  of  spirit,  to  a  world  of  ideas 
as  divine  and  eternal  things,  and  the  true  home  of  the  soul  as  a 
spiritual  being.  I  know  of  no  writer's  thought  in  antiquity  that 
has  in  it  so  distinctively  this  spiritual  quality  so  familiar  to  us  in 
the  substance  of  Christian  truth.  Everywhere  are  you  kept 
aware  of  that  contrast  and  union  as  well,  at  once  so  mysterious 
and  so  real  in  man's  double  nature  and  life,  of  the  seen  and  tem- 
poral, and  the  unseen  and  eternal.  However  thinkers  may  differ 
about  Plato's  theory  of  ideas,  or  his  views  of  the  origin  of  mat- 
ter, yet  all  will  agree  that,  as  in  his  conception  of  the  world  the 
divine  intelligence  and  goodness  are  prior  and  superior  to  material 
nature  and  to  man,  so  in  man  is  the  soul  superior  to  the  body, 
and  the  things  of  the  soul  to  the  things  of  the  body,  and  parted, 
too,  in  a  difference  of  kind  and  worth  by  a  distance  "  which  no 
geometry  can  express.  "  How  nobly  does  he  speak  of  the  origin 
and  worth  of  the  soul ! 


PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY.  261 

"  The  soul  [he  says]  came  from  heaven,  but  the  body  is  earth-born ; 
and  so  the  soul  is  the  divine  part  of  man,  and  to  be  honored  next  to  God ; 
nor  does  a  man  honor  his  soul,  when  he  sells  her  glory  for  gold,  for  not 
all  the  gold  in  the  world  is  to  be  compared  with  the  soul ;  but  a  man  can 
honor  his  soul  only  by  making  her  better." 

Are  we  not  at  once  reminded  of  the  words  of  Jesus,  "  What 
shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his 
own  soul  ?  Or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for  his  soul  ?  " 
Only  such  a  spiritual  philosophy  can  establish  a  real  basis  for  a 
spiritual  religion.  Recognizing  the  primary  conceptions  of  reve- 
lation, God,  virtue,  immortality,  in  the  facts  of  consciousness,  as 
the  intuitive  faiths  of  the  soul,  it  finds  man  able  to  apprehend  and 
receive  the  positive  truths  of  Christianity,  and  to  partake  of  its 
renovating  and  redeeming  power.  Hence  it  is  that  Platonism  has 
had  such  strong  attractions  for  so  many  great  and  good  men  in 
the  Christian  church,  from  the  days  of  Origen  and  Augustine 
until  now.  Hence,  too,  in  every  great  epoch,  in  every  new  mental 
struggle,  in  all  the  conflicts  of  Christian  faith  with  doubt  and 
error,  Plato  has  reappeared,  and  always  in  alliance  with  what  is 
noblest  and  best  in  Christian  thought  and  action.  And  in  these 
days  of  ours,  when  there  is  such  a  pronounced  tendency  in  physi- 
cal science  to  resolve  all  vitality  into  material  force,  all  thought 
into  cerebration,  and  all  mind  into  matter,  and  so  to  exalt  mate- 
rial phenomena  as  the  only  possible  subjects  of  human  interest, 
there  seems  to  be  needed  a  new  infusion  of  Plato's  ideal  thought 
to  preserve  the  equilibrium  between  physical  and  spiritual  truth. 
It  is  instructive  to  remember  that  Plato's  philosophy  was  at  the 
beginning*  a  protest  against  the  skepticism  engendered  by  the 
physical  speculations  of  his  time.  In  a  quite  remarkable  pas- 
sage he  describes  a  race  of  people  living  in  his  day  —  earth-born 
giants,  he  calls  them  —  who  were  ever  dragging  down  all  things 
from  heaven  to  earth,  who  would  hear  of  nothing  but  body  and 
matter,  and  denied  the  existence  of  everything  which  they  could 
not  hold  in  their  hands.  By  some  strange  provision  of  "  natural 
selection  "  this  race  seems  to  have  survived  till  now,  and  to  ex- 
hibit, with  some  variations,  the  characteristics  of  that  generation 
which  grew  out  of  the  soil  of  Athens.  Probably  we  all  set  far 
more  store  by  matter  than  Plato  was  wont  to  do ;  and  we  have,  as 
Plato  had  not,  a  physical  science,  which  in  its  discoveries  and 
applications  has  won  the  respect  and  admiration  of  mankind. 
But  the  speculations  of  some  of  the  leaders  of  this  progressive 


262  PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

science  have  inherent  in  them  the  same  material  and  earthly 
quality  as  those  of  their  predecessors  in  Plato's  time ;  and  the 
doctrine  that  all  positive  knowledge  is  of  the  physical,  and  that 
all  the  universe  consists  of  matter,  is  no  less  repulsive  now  than 
it  wa.s  then.  When  we  are  expected,  and  indeed  bidden,  to  keep 
up  with  the  march  of  such  a  science,  so  omniscient  of  matter  and 
so  nescient  of  mind,  we  feel  willing  to  linger  yet  awhile  in  Athens  ; 
and  there,  in  the  groves  of  the  Academy,  listen  to  that  calm  voice 
which,  with  uplifted  hand,  discourses  still  of  the  human  soul  as  a 
separate  being,  endowed  with  reason,  and  destined  to  immortality. 
From  this  general  view  let  me  pass  to  the  remark  that  in  the 
spirit  and  substance  of  Plato's  ethical  teaching  we  find  a  still 
nearer  relation  to  Christian  truth.  In  nothing  else  was  Plato  so 
genuine  a  disciple  of  Socrates  as  in  his  ultimate  reference  of  all 
philosophic  inquiry  to  the  practical  ends  of  a  righteous  character 
and  life.  It  is  true  that,  unlike  his  master,  he  was  wont  to  push 
his  inquiries  into  the  highest  and  rarest  regions  of  speculative 
thought ;  but  the  end  of  his  speculation  in  its  utmost  reach  and 
bound  was  to  see  and  possess  those  immutable  ideas  of  moral 
being  which,  wrought  into  ideals  of  character  and  realized  in 
action,  might  bring  man  into  likeness  to  God,  and  his  disordered 
life  into  harmony  with  the  divine  government.  Do  not  suppose 
that  in  thus  speaking  I  am  interpreting  Platonic  thought  by 
Christian  speech.  Remember  that  utterance  in  the  "  Theaetetus," 
"  God  is  altogether  righteous,  and  he  of  us  is  most  righteous  who 
is  most  like  Him."  Remember,  too,  that  word  of  Plato  in  the  "  Re- 
public," when  he  had  laid  the  foundations  of  the  state  in  perfect 
justice  and  virtue,  and  was  asked  where,  then,  was  such  a  state. 
"  In  heaven,"  he  said,  "  there  is  laid  up  a  pattern  of  such  a  city, 
and  let  him  who  desires  contemplate  that,  and  live  accordingly." 
Fond  as  Plato  was  of  speculation,  and  bent  upon  securing  a  meta- 
physical basis  for  morality,  yet  he  was  never  wont  to  present 
moral  truth  in  the  form  of  abstract  teaching.  We  are  to  look  in 
Plato  for  no  doctrinal  system,  no  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  virtue 
or  theory  of  the  moral  sentiments,  in  the  sense  of  modern  ethics  ; 
these  you  find  only  in  his  commentators,  never  in  himself.  They 
are  not  after  his  manner.  You  are  made  aware,  indeed,  in  all 
that  he  writes,  of  the  ruling  power  of  the  truest  theories  of  mor- 
als ;  you  feel  ever  the  presence  of  an  assured  conviction  of  right 
and  wrong  as  ultimate  moral  contradictions,  which  can  be  resolved 
into  no  other  principles ;  you  discover  the  supremacy  in  man  of 


PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY.  263 

that  faculty  which  they  address,  and  which  itself  intuitively  dis- 
cerns them ;  and  you  see  the  paramount  value  in  human  life  of 
their  unconditional  recognition  and  observance.  But  Plato  was 
born  for  letters  no  less  than  philosophy,  and  his  power  of  thought 
was  equaled  by  his  marvelous  skill  in  language ;  and  in  the  use 
of  these  rare  gifts  in  rarer  union,  he  aimed  to  bring  moral  truth 
close  to  human  feeling,  and  into  alliance  with  the  common  senti- 
ments of  men.  He  wrought  it  by  the  vital  and  plastic  force  of 
his  literary  genius  into  all  forms  of  beautiful  and  impressive  con- 
ception, and  of  gracious  and  eloquent  speech,  fitted  to  quicken  the 
sensibilities  and  kindle  the  imagination  by  visions  of  the  beauty 
of  moral  excellence,  and  to  win  and  carry  the  will  in  purpose  and 
effort  to  its  attainment  in  virtuous  life.  And  here  is  the  unspeak- 
able charm  of  Plato's  moral  writings,  and  here  the  secret  of  their 
power.  They  are  living  illustrations  of  the  beneficent  influence 
of  letters,  when  guided  by  wisdom  and  virtue  in  bringing  the 
principles  of  moral  and  religious  truth  close  home  to  the  common 
thinking  and  living  of  men.  All  honor  to  the  Christian  thinkers 
who  have  established  great  principles  in  ethical  science,  and  have 
taught  them  in  didactic  form.  Their  power  is  enduring  and  sure ; 
but  except  in  rare  instances  it  is  not  felt  by  the  general  mind,  and 
only  slowly  and  through  "  the  fit  audience,  though  few,"  whom 
they  address.  When  we  study  the  works  of  Bishop  Butler,  which 
perhaps  many  of  us  more  dutifully  praise  than  love  to  read,  or 
those  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  and  try  for  instance  to  put  to  practi- 
cal use  that  definition  of  "  Virtue  as  a  love  to  Being  in  general," 
are  we  not  apt  to  think  how  immeasurably  the  direct  influence  of 
those  profound  writers  would  have  been  widened  if,  with  their 
power  of  speculation  like  Plato's,  they  had  also  had  something  of 
his  genial  style,  if  their  talent  for  communication  had  borne  any 
proportion  to  their  talent  for  its  investigation  and  discovery. 
These  ethical  writings  of  Plato,  then,  are  not  treatises  or  disquisi- 
tions ;  they  are  dialogues,  conceived  and  composed  not  for  the 
few,  but  for  the  many;  for  the  whole  Athenian  public,  and 
through  them  for  the  world  of  mankind.  They  are  conversations 
after  the  manner  of  Socrates,  and  hardly  less  lifelike  and  real 
than  those  actually  held  by  Socrates  in  the  streets  of  Athens. 
They  are  the  conversations  of  the  master  idealized  as  the  master 
was  idealized  himself  by  the  genius  of  the  pupil ;  cast  in  a  larger 
mould,  and  adorned  with  all  the  finish  of  consummate  art,  but 
instinct  with  the  same  moral  spirit,  and  ever  striving  to  the  same 


264  PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

moral  ends.  They  are  all  drawn  out  from  real  human  life,  and 
have  in  themselves  its  vital  quality ;  not  Socrates  alone,  but  all 
the  speakers  are  real  men,  types  of  Athenian  character,  represen- 
tatives of  Athenian  opinion ;  and  the  places  of  discourse  their 
daily  familiar  haunts,  the  market-place,  the  palestra,  the  courts  of 
law ;  but  wherever  or  by  whomsoever  held,  or  starting  out  from 
whatever  natural  incident  or  description,  they  soon  leave  behind 
them  outward  and  earthly  things,  and  touch  and  pierce  to  the 
quick  the  profoundest  questions  of  moral  being,  uncoiling  with 
sure  dialectic  skill  a  chain  of  moral  sequence  that  reaches  on 
through  all  the  present  world  far  away  into  the  unseen  and  eter- 
nal. This  method  of  teaching  by  the  sharp  questioning  process 
of  dialogue  was  eminently  fitted  to  the  need  of  Plato's  time.  His 
life  and  career  fell  on  an  age  and  among  a  people  marked  by  in- 
tellectual force  and  activity,  but  no  less  by  moral  weakness  and 
confusion,  when  the  leaven  of  immorality  and  irreligion  had 
spread  through  the  mass  of  society.  Alike  the  leaders  of  the 
people  and  the  people  themselves  were  complacently  content  to 
live  only  amid  the  shows  and  shadows  of  truth  and  good;  the 
conceptions  of  a  divine  superintending  Power  and  a  future  retri- 
bution were  only  outworn  fictions  of  credulity  and  superstition  ; 
virtue  was  a  thing  of  tradition  or  opinion,  right  only  might,  and 
goodness  and  badness  only  conventional  terms,  changing  with 
changing  circumstance  ;  and  thus  the  substantial  ideas  of  morals 
and  religion  were  only  empty  sounds  to  the  ear,  and  flitted  before 
the  eye  ever  as  dim  unreal  figures  amid  the  dissolving  scenes  of  a 
passing  world.  Now  it  is  in  Plato's  teachings  which  aim  at  a 
practical  reformation  of  these  radical  evils  that  the  Christian 
reader  discovers  near  approaches  to  revealed  truth,  bright  gleams 
of  moral  light,  issuing  from  the  law  written  on  the  heart  of  man, 
which  foretoken  the  perfect  manifestation  to  be  made  in  the  full- 
ness of  time  in  the  ethics  of  the  gospel,  and  the  perfect  life  of 
Christ.  You  are  ever  conscious,  it  is  true,  that  it  is  only  human 
teaching,  sometimes  wrong,  always  limited ;  but  often  are  you 
startled  at  the  enunciation  of  principles  which  in  themselves  and 
in  their  expression  approximate  to  what  is  most  characteristic  in 
New  Testament  teaching.  As  the  philosopher  exposes  the  conven- 
tional morality  of  his  time,  which  rested  only  on  a  kind  of  Athe- 
nian "  tradition  of  the  elders,"  and  aimed  only  at  social  or  civic 
respectability,  you  are  reminded  of  Him  who  spake  as  never  man 
spake,  when  He  told  his  hearers  that  unless  their  righteousness 


PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY.  265 

exceeded  the  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  they 
could  in  no  case  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  By  his  dia- 
lectic process  in  these  Dialogues  how  does  Plato  sift  to  the  bottom 
all  that  perverse  Athenian  life,  and  bring  up  to  the  light  its  mon- 
strous delusions,  and  how  earnestly  he  seeks  to  establish  in  private 
and  public  life  the  supremacy  of  moral  ideas !  What  solemn 
words  he  uttered  in  the  ears  of  Athenian  youth  who  affected  to  be 
superior  to  a  belief  in  the  divine  existence,  and  the  divine  gov- 
ernment of  the  world.  "  God  moves  according  to  his  nature  in  a 
straight  line  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  ends.  Justice  follows 
him,  and  is  the  punisher  of  all  who  fall  short  of  the  divine  law. 
To  that  law  he  who  would  be  happy  holds  fast  and  follows  in  all 
humility."  And  in  respect  "to  the  ways  of  Providence,"  he 
says :  — 

"  O  youth,  who  think  you  are  unheeded  by  God,  boast  not  of  having 
escaped  his  justice.  Never  shall  you  be  lost  sight  of  by  it.  Not  so  small 
art  thou  as  to  hide  in  the  depths  of  the  earth,  nor  so  high  that  thou  canst 
mount  to  heaven ;  but  either  here  or  somewhere  else  thou  shalt  pay  the 
penalty.  So,  too,  shall  it  be  with  the  wicked  whom  you  saw  in  prosper- 
ity, and  made  the  mirror  of  divine  justice,  not  considering  their  latter 
end." 

It  were  difficult  in  brief  compass  to  mention  those  elements  of 
Plato's  ethical  teaching  which  have  a  likeness  to  Christian  truth. 
His  fundamental  thought  is  that  of  a  living  virtue,  resting  upon 
knowledge,  and  pervading  the  inner  being  of  man,  and  ennobling 
all  human  relations.  This  he  represents  in  some  Dialogues  in 
individual  virtues,  as  temperance,  justice,  piety,  in  others  in  an 
ideal  unity ;  and  in  one  work,  the  "  Apology,"  the  conception  is 
set  in  the  real  example  of  Socrates,  the  highest  illustration  known 
to  himself  and  the  pagan  world  of  a  genuine  human  life.  In  his 
Dialogues  of  a  wider  compass  this  conception  is  fashioned  into  an 
ideal  for  the  individual  of  a  comprehensive  rule  of  life,  and  for 
society  of  a  state  founded  in  the  laws  of  reason  and  virtue ;  and 
in  each  aspect,  and  in  both  together,  the  conception  is  bound  to 
the  great  and  governing  thought  of  a  divine  moral  order  of  the 
world.  Let  me  try  to  illustrate  these  elements  by  some  of  the 
chief  thoughts  of  the  two  Dialogues,  the  "  Gorgias  "  and  the  "  Re- 
public." The  "  Republic  "  is  treated  sometimes  as  only  an  inquiry 
into  the  nature  of  justice,  sometimes  only  as  the  construction  of 
an  ideal  state ;  but  the  two  unite  in  one  —  in  the  idea  of  justice 
visibly  embodied  in  the  perfect  state.  So,  too,  we  are  apt  to  look 


266  PLATO'S   PHILOSOPHY. 

only  at  separate  phases  of  the  many-sided  "Gorgias."  Some  look 
only  at  the  contrast  between  true  and  false  rhetoric  as  suggested 
in  the  conversation  with  Gorgias ;  others  only  at  the  contrast  be- 
tween true  and  false  statesmanship,  as  portrayed  in  the  conversa- 
tion with  Callicles ;  but  in  truth  these  and  other  minor  contrasts 
are  only  means  to  one  great  moral  end ;  they  are  employed  with 
most  earnest  aim  and  consummate  art  to  set  forth  the  larger  an- 
tagonism of  the  true  and  the  false  art  of  life  itself,  and  to  lift  up 
the  conception  of  an  all-comprehensive  imperial  moral  art  of  life 
which  takes  up  into  itself  all  arts,  all  knowledge,  and  all  action, 
and  sways  all  individuals  and  society  by  the  laws  of  justice  and 
virtue.  But  it  is  especially  in  the  conversations  with  Callicles  in 
the  "  Gorgias,"  and  with  Thrasymachus  in  the  "  Republic,"  that 
we  have  the  best  moral  teachings  of  Plato.  In  these  sophists  he 
combats  the  teachers  of  the  selfish  theories  of  morals  of  all  times, 
and  their  willing  pupils  of  all  generations  —  the  larger  Demos  of 
a  world  loving  darkness  rather  than  light,  hating  truth  and  loving 
appearance,  and  bent  upon  gain  and  pleasure  rather  than  the 
right ;  against  them  all  he  vindicates  the  ideas  of  truth  and  virtue 
as  not  only  real,  but  born  of  a  divine  right  to  a  supremacy  in  the 
soul,  and  alone  yielding  supreme  good.  None  of  his  other  Dia- 
logues unfold  their  lessons  in  more  dramatic  form  than  these. 
You  seem  to  see  the  great  forces  of  right  and  wrong,  good  and 
evil,  moving  on  over  the  world's  stage  in  human  characters  and 
scenes,  and  shaping  the  action  and  destiny  of  men  for  the  life  that 
now  is  and  for  the  endless  hereafter.  You  are  taught  that  in  spite 
of  all  cunning  appearance  truth  and  goodness  are  real  things,  and 
the  divinest  and  best  that  men  can  seek,  and  to  be  sought  for  their 
own  dear  sake,  with  no  side-look  to  what  may  come  of  them ;  that 
it  is  not  essential  to  be  happy,  but  that  it  is  essential  to  be  virtu- 
ous, even  as  Socrates  said  when  they  begged  him  to  escape  from 
prison,  that  the  thing  to  be  cared  for  was  not  to  live,  but  to  live 
well.  There,  too,  is  maintained  the  noble  paradox,  that  to  do  evil 
is  far  worse  than  to  suffer  evil,  and  that  the  next  best  thing  to 
being  just  is  to  become  just,  and  that  if  a  man  have  done  injus- 
tice, it  is  better  even  for  himself  that  he  be  punished  for  it.  And 
what  impressive  scenes  you  witness  there  of  virtue  triumphant  and 
made  perfect  in  suffering,  and  of  vice  defeated  and  made  wretched 
in  success !  The  unjust  man,  though  on  a  throne  and  master  of 
thousands,  is  beheld  as  his  own  slave,  his  heart  haunted  by  pas- 
sion and  fear,  and  himself  the  unhappiest  of  men.  And  that  other 


PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY.  267 

picture,  too,  on  which  the  world  yet  gazes  even  as  on  a  master- 
piece of  Grecian  art  —  the  just  man  robbed  by  an  unjust  world  of 
all  earthly  good,  and  clothed  only  in  justice,  but  clad  in  that  even 
as  in  truly  regal  attire ;  defamed,  stricken,  and  scourged,  and 
finally  crucified ;  but  his  virtue  proof  against  all  infamy,  and  his 
soul  serene  even  in  excruciating  death.  In  this  picture  Plato  was 
doubtless  portraying  the  fate  of  his  master ;  but  the  Christian 
beholder  may  seem  to  see  it  transfigured  into  that  unapproachable 
scene  of  the  Divine  Sufferer  who  gave  up  his  life  for  the  life  of 
the  world. 

But  yet  other  scenes  with  their  living  lessons  pass  before  the 
view.  Not  only  have  the  just  and  the  unjust  men  in  themselves 
the  highest  good  and  the  worst  evil,  but  even  in  this  life  they  have 
each  their  sure  recompense.  Men  may  waver  about  them  for  a 
while,  but  they  are  at  last  fixed  in  a  right  estimation  of  both. 
Look  long  enough,  and  you  shall  see  that  the  clever  unjust  who 
made  so  brave  a  start,  now  come  in  foolish  at  the  goal,  and  with- 
out a  prize ;  while  the  just  man,  like  the  true  runner,  perseveres 
to  the  end  and  wins  and  wears  the  crown,  these  words  proclaiming 
the  coronation :  "  All  things  in  life  will  work  for  the  good  man, 
for  the  gods  have  a  care  of  him  who  desires  to  be  like  God,  so  far 
as  one  can  be  by  the  pursuit  of  virtue."  "  Yet  all  this  is  as  no- 
thing compared  with  what  awaits  the  just  and  unjust  after  death." 
With  this  language  the  last  scene  of  all  then  opens  before  us,  dis- 
closing to  view  the  unseen  and  eternal  world  and  its  recompenses 
of  everlasting  rewards  and  punishments.  You  behold  the  dread 
tribunal  there,  and  there  the  judges  seated ;  and  before  them  come 
the  souls  of  the  just  and  unjust  all  unclothed  and  bare,  bright 
with  the  visible  stamp  of  justice  and  virtue,  or  all  foul  and  scarred 
by  injustice  and  vice,  and  they  severally  pass  when  judged  straight 
to  their  appointed  lot  and  place.  And  as  you  look  with  strained 
eye  and  ear,  you  seem  to  hear,  as  the  lost  go  down  to  their  doom, 
their  swift  beginning  woes,  even  as  of  "  the  worm  that  dieth  not ; " 
and  as  the  just  rise  upwards  to  mansions  so  fair  they  may  not  be 
described,  you  seem  to  catch  distant  sounds  sweeter  far  than  music 
of  the  spheres  as  they  enter  their  everlasting  rest.  Thus  it  is  that 
these  remarkable  representations  of  the  future  world  which  con- 
clude these  Dialogues  lift  us  up  to  the  highest  moral  idea  which 
they  aim  to  teach,  and  in  true  accord  with  their  dramatic  tone 
they  form  the  epilogues  even  as  of  solemn  tragedies  of  human  be- 
ing. The  antagonism  of  the  twofold  life  of  man  and  its  twofold 


268  PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

art  which  has  moved  on  through  all  their  scenes,  comes  out  at  last 
in  clear  entireness,  the  laws  of  human  morality  merge  in  the  moral 
laws  of  the  universe ;  and  herein  run  and  blend  together  all  the 
threads  of  the  manifold  tissues  of  the  dramatic  action. 

But  when  we  pass  from  the  ethical  to  the  religious  thought  of 
Plato,  and  seek  to  find  there  a  solution  of  the  disorder  in  man's 
relations  to  God,  and  of  the  means  for  its  cure,  it  is  then  that  we 
see  how  his  philosophy  is  at  best  only  preparatory  to  Christianity 
and  parted  from  it,  even  as  reason  from  revelation.  There  runs 
through  it  all,  indeed,  a  sad  undertone  of  conviction  that  man  has 
somehow  fallen  out  of  a  sphere  in  which  he  was  made  to  move ; 
and  this  mingles  with  a  yearning  sense  of  the  need  of  some  influ- 
ence to  uplift  him  and  restore  him  there  ;  but  what  that  fall  was, 
and  what  the  means  of  recovery,  are  questions  it  fails,  and  must 
needs  fail,  to  answer.  Let  me  touch  upon  some  of  the  elements 
of  Plato's  answers  to  these  questions  of  sin  and  redemption,  which 
have  been  so  solved  for  us  by  the  words  and  work  of  Jesus.  How 
far  short  does  he  fall  of  the  Christian  conception  of  God !  He 
rendered,  indeed,  a  great  service  in  the  preparation  of  paganism 
for  Christianity,  by  teaching,  in  opposition  to  polytheism,  the  truth 
of  one  God ;  and  I  think,  too,  in  opposition  to  pantheism,  of  a 
personal  God.  He  purged  the  Hellenic  mythology  of  its  unworthy 
ideas  of  deity,  and  banished  Homer  from  his  ideal  republic,  be- 
cause he  adorned  them  by  his  verse ;  and  those  ideas  he  replaced 
with  the  doctrine  of  God,  as  the  only  Good  and  True,  and  as  will- 
ing only  good  and  truth.  But  I  find  no  word  in  all  Plato's  afflu- 
ent Greek  for  the  revealed  conception  of  the  holiness  of  God. 
Never  had  reached  his  ear  and  touched  his  soul  such  a  voice  as 
that  caught  by  Isaiah  from  seraph's  lips,  "  Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  the 
Lord  of  Hosts."  Never  in  the  utmost  reach  of  his  genius  had 
he  won  that  height  to  which  the  servant  of  Christ  was  borne  by 
the  Spirit,  when  he  looked  through  the  opened  door  into  heaven, 
and  heard  that  strain  which  rests  not  day  and  night,  "  Holy, 
holy,  holy,  Lord  God  Almighty,  which  was,  and  is,  and  is  to 
come." 

With  this  defect  in  Plato's  conception  of  God  is  connected  his 
imperfect  view  of  sin.  Manifold  are  the  aspects  which  he  presents 
of  moral  evil  in  man.  It  is  described  in  general  as  a  parting  of 
the  soul  from  God,  and,  quite  in  Scripture  language,  as  living 
without  God  in  the  world ;  as  a  moral  discord,  a  disease  of  the 
soul,  and  especially  as  a  bondage  of  reason  to  desire,  of  the  spirit 


PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY.  269 

to  flesh.  The  body,  indeed,  is  always  with  Plato  the  soul's  mortal 
foe.  So  controlling  is  this  element  in  his  thought,  that  he  seems 
to  teach  in  allegory  even  the  present  bodily  state  as  resulting  from 
the  fall  of  the  soul  from  its  pristine  purity.  Once  the  soul  en- 
joyed a  winged  being,  and,  in  a  triple  form  of  charioteer  and  two 
steeds,  careered  in  some  ethereal  paradise,  and  gazed  in  open  vis- 
ion upon  absolute  truth  and  goodness.  But  while  one  of  the 
steeds  was  white  and  obedient  to  the  rein,  and  ever  tending  up- 
ward, the  other  was  black  of  color  and  yet  blacker  of  nature,  and 
always  gravitating  earthward,  and  so  by  and  by  quite  dragged 
down  his  nobler  mate,  all  wing-broken  and  plumes  draggled  and 
finally  gone,  and  doomed  the  soul  to  earth  and  bodily  form.  But 
in  all  these  aspects,  evil  in  man  is  unlike  the  revealed  conception 
of  sin.  Its  root  is  made  to  be  intellectual  rather  than  moral  —  a 
disease  of  the  intelligence  which  blinds  the  eye  of  the  soul  to  true 
good.  Seldom  does  it  approach  the  view  of  the  ground  of  the  evil 
as  lying  in  a  perverted  direction  of  the  will,  or  in  alienation  of 
the  heart  from  God  by  voluntary  transgression.  It  seems  strange 
that  with  all  the  earnest  religious  feeling  which  Plato  so  often 
expresses,  we  discover  none  of  that  sense  of  ill-desert  and  need  of 
repentance  and  forgiveness  so  familiar  to  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness. We  could  well  part  with  the  whole  of  that  exquisite  myth 
to  which  I  have  just  alluded  for  one  word  that  might  resemble  the 
parable  of  the  publican,  who  would  not  lift  up  so  much  as  his  eyes 
to  heaven,  but  smote  upon  his  breast,  saying,  "  God  be  merciful  to 
me,  a  sinner." 

And  with  all  his  effort  of  searching,  how  far  does  Plato  fall 
below  a  conception  of  the  remedy  needed  for  the  fallen  state  of 
man  !  Yet  some  profound  students  of  the  philosopher  think  that 
his  speculations  have  in  them  the  germs  of  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  redemption  and  atonement.  Such  a  view  wrongs  Platonism  no 
less  than  Christianity  itself.  The  philosopher,  indeed,  is  ever 
teaching  the  bitter  need  of  a  moral  deliverance  of  man,  and 
striving  to  reach  and  realize  it ;  and  in  his  teachings  we  are  often 
startled  at  the  likeness  of  his  language  to  that  of  Scripture.  The 
soul,  he  says,  must  be  turned  from  darkness  to  light,  must  die  to 
sin  by  rising  above  earthly  passion  and  desire,  must  now  be  loosed 
so  far  as  possible  from  the  bondage  of  the  flesh,  and  look  with 
hope  to  death  as  the  only  perfect  release  from  its  thralldom.  But 
yet  the  only  redemption  which  he  can  reach  is,  like  the  evil,  an 
intellectual  one.  It  is  a  salvation  to  be  wrought  by  philosophy, 


270  PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  soul  rising  by  its  aid  through  contemplation  to  the  intuition  of 
truth.  In  a  remarkable  passage  he  describes  the  upward  course 
of  the  soul  through  successive  stages  of  purifying  knowledge, 
until  it  gains  a  sight  of  the  idea  of  good  dwelling  in  its  f  ullness 
only  in  God,  and  illumining  even  as  a  sun  the  moral  universe. 
And  still  this  laborious  process  is  not  a  merely  intellectual  one. 
These  ideas  of  truth  and  goodness  are  conceived  as  invested  with 
moral  beauty,  and  thus  fitted  to  awaken  in  him  who  beholds  them 
the  feeling  of  love ;  and  this  love,  when  awakened,  exerts  over 
him  a  transforming  power,  by  which  he  grows  into  their  likeness. 
When  we  study  as  Christians  these  upward  strivings  of  Plato's 
human  wisdom,  we  cannot  but  think,  What  if  to  him  had  been 
revealed,  even  as  to  us,  the  divine  way  of  redemption,  not  by  man 
mounting  on  wings  of  contemplation  to  heaven  and  to  God,  but 
by  heaven  bending  to  earth,  and  God  himself  condescending  to 
man,  and  the  Son  of  God  taking  upon  Him  man's  nature,  and  en- 
tering as  a  personal  living  power  into  human  life  and  history,  that 
God  in  Christ  might  reconcile  the  world  unto  himself.  In  the 
personal  divine  Redeemer,  as  the  Word  made  flesh,  he  might  have 
seen  embodied  and  illustrated  that  idea  of  God  which  he  strove  to 
contemplate,  —  that  perfect  beauty  of  virtue,  that  perfect  rule  of 
life,  —  and  he,  intellectual  Greek  though  he  was,  might  have  seen 
that  divine  Redeemer  in  the  form  of  a  servant  by  the  voluntary 
humiliation  of  his  sufferings  and  death,  shown  forth  as  the  Lamb 
of  God  to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world,  and  by  the  might  of 
that  divine  love  set  forth  by  such  humiliation,  touching  the  heart 
of  man  as  no  ideal  thought  could  touch  it,  and,  by  inspiring  a 
faith  working  by  love,  re-create  the  soul  and  bring  it  into  the  real 
likeness  of  God.  And  here,  too,  he  might  have  found  that  reve- 
lation from  God  of  which  he  once  uttered  a  conjectural  hope, 
which  could  have  given  a  religious  basis  of  the  morality  which  he 
taught,  and  furnished  a  sufficient  motive  through  a  living  faith 
for  its  realization  in  a  righteous  life.  And  lastly,  such  a  faith 
standing  in  the  power  of  God  would  have  been  discovered  as  ade- 
quate to  the  calling  and  salvation  —  not  as  the  wisdom  of  philoso- 
phy, of  the  intellectual  elite  of  the  race,  the  wise  men  after  the 
flesh,  the  mighty,  the  noble,  but  of  the  foolish  as  well ;  and  yet 
more,  and  the  weak,  and  the  base,  and  the  despised  —  a  saving 
faith  for  all  mankind. 

This  discussion  of  the  moral  and  religious  thoughts  of  one  of 
the  most  eminent  of  the  writers  of  antiquity  yields  us  as  one  les- 


PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY.  271 

son  an  insight  into  the  ultimate  end  of  those  classical  studies  which 
enter  so  largely  into  all  our  higher  education.  Not  alone  to  form 
a  basis  for  mental  discipline  and  culture,  by  furnishing  models  of 
consummate  excellence  in  thought  and  expression,  are  those  stud- 
ies designed.  The  true  and  ultimate  end  is  a  moral  and  religious 
one — the  knowledge  gained  by  a  deeper  and  maturer  study  of 
classical  antiquity,  of  the  place  and  function  of  all  ancient  phi- 
losophy, letters,  art,  life,  in  the  providential  order  of  the  world, 
in  preparing  the  way  for  the  entrance  of  Christianity  into  hu- 
man life  and  history.  All  that  rich  and  fruitful  culture  was  only 
human,  and  wrought  out,  I  may  say,  from  below ;  but  it  was  to 
form  a  human  basis  for  a  richer  and  far  more  fruitful  culture, 
when  once  there  should  descend  a  divine  power  from  above,  to 
regenerate  the  soul  of  man  and  pour  a  divine  life  into  the  bosom 
of  a  sinful  world.  Such  a  renewing,  life-giving  influence  the 
wisdom  of  cultivated  Greece  —  even  of  Plato's  philosophy,  the 
fairest  and  finest  bloom  of  all  that  culture  —  could  not  reach 
even  in  adequate  idea  ;  it  could  only  haply  feel  after  it,  and  dimly 
prophesy  its  coming  by  revealing  the  spiritual  wants  of  man,  as 
severed  from  God  and  needing  restoration.  The  prodigal  race, 
wanderers  from  the  Father's  house,  were  to  be  brought  back  as 
penitent  sinners,  only  by  the  anticipating  and  forerunning  compas- 
sion of  the  Father  himself.  Here  is  the  lesson  to  be  won  from 
our  discussion,  and  to  be  wrought  into  all  our  thought  and  faith 
and  life.  Consider  Plato's  rich  gifts  and  attainments,  his  power 
of  speculative  thought,  his  soaring  imagination,  his  beautiful  and 
eloquent  speech ;  but  even  that  intellect  was  blind,  that  tongue 
was  dumb  to  that  greatest  of  all  human  questions,  "  How  shall 
man  be  just  with  God  ?  "  —  be  delivered  from  sin,  and  set  forward 
on  a  new  career  of  endless  knowledge,  holiness  and  happiness. 
On  these  matters  of  supreme  moment,  that  exalted  intelligence 
might  sit  as  a  learner  at  the  feet  of  the  humblest  Christian  disci- 
ple, made  wise  unto  salvation  through  the  faith  that  is  in  Christ 
Jesus.  He  that  is  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than 
he.  And  yet,  let  us  not,  as  Christians,  exalt  ourselves  overmuch 
above  the  pagan  philosopher.  What  we  have  that  he  had  not  is 
not  ours,  or  of  us,  but  only  God's ;  and  ours  only  by  the  conde- 
scending grace  of  Christ.  When  I  study  Plato  and  Plato's  life, 
and  think  of  our  advanced  position  in  respect  to  spiritual  and  sav- 
ing knowledge,  I  am  prone  to  recall  the  apostle's  words,  "  Who 
maketh  thee  to  differ  from  another,  and  what  hast  thou  that  thou 


272  PLATO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

didst  not  receive?"  Nay,  let  me  at  least  point  to  one  lesson 
which  may  be  learned  by  us  Christians  from  Plato's  example. 
We  have  seen  with  what  a  truly  religious  earnestness  he  sought 
for  moral  and  religious  truth,  and  wrought  it,  so  far  as  he  could 
find  it,  into  his  own  life  and  action.  This  truth  he  first  learned  to 
love  and  seek  from  only  a  human  teacher,  whom,  however,  he 
revered  as  the  best  and  wisest  of  all  men  known  to  the  ancient 
pagan  world.  That  truth  he  prized  above  all  earthly  good,  and 
its  pursuit  he  counted  as  the  one  work  worth  doing  under  the 
sun.  And  the  truth  which  he  gained  and  lived  by  himself  he 
inculcated  with  the  same  earnestness  upon  others ;  he  taught  it, 
he  preached  it  for  forty  years,  by  word  and  by  deed,  by  living 
voice  and  written  speech,  against  sophists  who  opposed  it  in  the- 
ory, and  the  world  who  opposed  it  in  practice,  and  strove  to  con- 
vince them,  and  to  win  them  to  see  and  receive  and  adopt  it  for 
themselves.  Be  it  ours,  as  disciples  of  the  divine  Teacher  and 
Saviour,  to  receive  ourselves,  and  make  known  to  others,  that 
revealed  and  only  saving  truth  of  the  gospel  —  the  truth  as  it  is 
in  Jesus,  which  has  been  freely  given  us  —  with  a  religious  ear- 
nestness of  like  quality  and  of  a  greater  intensity  in  proportion  to 
the  immeasurably  superior  greatness  of  the  gift.  Let  it  be  for  us 
not  a  meagre  and  pale  thing  of  tradition,  of  custom,  of  inheri- 
tance ;  but  in  us,  through  the  Word  and  Spirit  of  Christ,  a  living 
and  life-giving  truth.  So  may  it  for  us,  and  for  those  whom 
we  may  bless  by  our  labors,  become  the  power  of  God  and  the 
wisdom  of  God  unto  salvation.  So  may  they  and  we  be  entered 
as  fellow-citizens,  not  into  an  ideal  republic,  —  the  fair  creation 
of  a  philosopher's  imagination,  —  but  into  a  real  kingdom,  the 
pattern  of  which  is  in  reality  laid  up  in  heaven,  the  City  of  God. 


PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

WRITTEN   FOR   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,   JANUARY   3,  1873. 

MY  subject  is  Plato's  "  Republic,"  and  I  propose  to  give  a  gen- 
eral view  of  the  work,  and  then  to  look  at  it  in  some  of  its  histor- 
ical and  its  ideal  aspects. 

I  fear  that  I  may  seem  to  be  trespassing  upon  your  indulgence 
in  asking  you  to  go  back  again  to  classic  antiquity  and  to  consider 
a  subject  suggested  by  that  of  my  last  paper,  and  derived  from 
the  writings  of  the  same  author.  But  let  me  first  plead  the  gen- 
eral view,  that  in  the  papers  we  here  present  we  may  each  in  turn 
probably  contribute  most  to  the  general  good  by  discussing  sub- 
jects drawn  from  our  own  professional  pursuits  and  the  studies  to 
which  they  lead  us.  Besides,  we  may  certainiy  come  very  often 
to  Plato,  and  every  time  hold  with  him  long  converse,  without 
peril  of  sameness  or  repetition ;  a  mind  so  comprehensive  and 
many-sided  as  his,  and  writings  of  such  large  and  various  scope 
may  yield  us  many  distinct  themes,  as  diverse  in  themselves  and 
their  relations  as  if  they  were  drawn  from  different  authors,  in  all 
respects  widely  parted  from  each  other.  It  is  also  singularly  true 
of  Plato  that  though  he  ran  his  earthly  career  in  ancient  Greece, 
yet  as  a  thinker  and  a  writer  he  lived  and  reigned  in  a  world  that 
knows  no  bounds  of  time  or  country  or  nation,  but  is  universal  as 
the  race  and  its  entire  life.  Individual  men  and  generations  of 
men  may  care  naught  for  his  metaphysics,  may  reject  it  as  effete, 
or  as  false  in  itself,  but  his  philosophy,  however  little  it  may  inter- 
est or  benefit  the  many  as  a  speculation,  has  in  it  a  life  for  all 
men  of  all  times ;  his  works  by  their  prevailing  spirit  and  the 
great  moral  and  spiritual  truths  they  teach  are  fixed  in  abiding 
relations  to  the  human  mind,  and  to  all  human  society ;  never  of 
a  dead  past,  but  always  of  a  living  present,  they  have  for  us,  too, 
a  new  and  ever  fresh  charm  and  clear  value  in  their  great  thoughts 
and  fine  imaginations,  expressed  in  the  most  perfect  forms  of  lan- 
guage. The  habitually  contemplative  spirit  which  breathes  through 
all  that  he  wrote,  has  in  it  something  eminently  conservative  for 
our  own  time  and  country.  On  the  other  hand,  for  one  who  now 


274  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

reads  his  works,  it  is  sometimes  strange  and  startling  to  come 
upon  points  of  contact  with  some  of  the  most  practical  issues  of 
our  day  in  politics,  education,  and  morals,  as  if  his  sagacious  and 
prescient  mind  had  peered  far  down  the  vista  of  time  and  caught 
some  glimpses  of  events  and  forms  of  society  destined  only  in  far- 
off  ages  to  come  into  full  being. 

By  the  study  of  the  myths  of  Plato,  and  especially  of  the  two 
celebrated  ones  contained  in  the  "  Republic,"  I  have  been  drawn, 
gradually  but  irresistibly,  to  a  special  study  of  the  whole  of  this 
remarkable  work.  It  is  one  that  gains  ever  upon  you  in  respect 
of  interest  and  value  the  more  you  read  and  study  it,  the  more 
you  yield  it  an  attentive  and  willing  mind,  and  especially  the 
nearer  you  come  into  sympathy  with  the  spirit  and  aims  of  the 
writer.  For  while  that  familiar  word  is  true  of  Plato,  that  all  will 
see  in  him  so  much  as  they  bring  eyes  to  see,  yet  more  true  is  that 
higher  word  of  Shakespeare,  that  "  love  adds  a  precious  seeing  to 
the  eye."  Indifferent  and  therefore  superficial  readers  may  easily 
make  merry  over  some  of  his  errors  or  seemingly  visionary  views, 
and  more  thoughtful  ones,  and  yet  no  more  friendly,  may  all  too 
quickly  warm  with  indignation  over  the  offensive  institutions  of 
his  ideal  state,  and  with  a  dogmatic  hardness  at  once  condemn 
them  as  if  they  proved  immorality  or  immoral  aims  in  the  author ; 
but  whoever  will  read  him  with  an  open  eye  and  a  kindly  heart, 
loving  truth  as  he  loved  it,  and  as  patiently  and  vigorously  intent 
upon  its  attainment,  will  be  conscious  not  only  of  highest  instruc- 
tion and  delight,  but  of  an  uplifting  and  purifying  influence,  such 
as  comes  only  from  the  greatest  and  best  minds  of  the  race. 

The  "  Republic "  is,  by  the  suffrages  of  all  students  of  Plato, 
the  greatest  of  his  works ;  it  holds  the  supreme  place  among  his 
Dialogues,  or,  as  his  more  enthusiastic  lovers  are  fond  of  calling  it, 
it  is  the  royal  dialogue.  All  that  went  before  were  preparatory 
stages  of  progress  to  this,  and  reached  in  it  their  goal  and  culmi- 
nation. You  have  here  his  most  comprehensive  view  of  man's 
life,  the  consummation  of  his  philosophy ;  you  see  on  largest  can- 
vas the  workings  and  results  of  all  his  various  powers  in  their  ripe 
maturity,  and  especially  that  blending  and  fusion  of  gifts  which 
made  him  preeminent  as  a  master  alike  of  thought  and  expression, 
at  once  philosopher  and  poet. 

It  seems  necessary,  first,  to  get  some  general  view  of  the  con- 
tents of  this  Dialogue,  that  we  may  put  ourselves  in  position  for 
those  aspects  of  it  which  I  propose  to  consider.  Yet  it  is  hard  to 


PLATO'S  REPUBLIC.  275 

analyze  Plato ;  it  is  hardly  possible,  without  doing  him  injustice,  to 
treat  him  merely  as  a  thinker.  This  point  has  been  well  made  by 
some  critics,  against  both  Mr.  Grote's  and  Mr.  Whewell's  treat- 
ment of  the  Platonic  Dialogues,  that  by  bringing  into  light  only 
the  thought  of  the  writer,  and  leaving  all  else  in  shade,  they  have 
failed  to  exhibit  fairly  and  clearly  the  thought  itself.  They  have 
rudely  severed  matter  and  form,  theory  and  expression,  body  and 
soul,  which  in  Plato's  conception  and  manner  were  one  and  insep- 
arable, and  so  have  given  only  Plato  in  part,  not  Plato  entire. 
And  even  an  ordinary  reader  and  student  of  Plato,  who  tries  to 
present  in  brief  the  thought  of  one  of  the  Dialogues,  is  conscious 
of  the  justness  of  the  criticism.  It  seems  like  dissecting  the  liv- 
ing man,  in  order  to  get  out  and  exhibit  the  quality  and  volume 
of  his  brain.  As  introductory,  however,  to  a  consideration  of  the 
historical  and  the  ideal  elements  of  this  work,  I  must  endeavor  to 
give  a  general  view  of  the  whole. 

The  selections  of  time  and  place  and  circumstances,  and  of 
personages  in  the  Dialogue  characteristic  of  the  tendencies  of  the 
times,  together  with  the  dramatic  grouping*  and  appointments 
are  all  in  harmony  with  the  design  of  the  work.  The  scene  is 
laid  at  the  Piraeus  in  the  house  of  Cephalus,  and  the  immediate 
occasion  is  the  festival  of  the  Thracian  Artemis.  Socrates  and 
Glaucon  have  assisted  at  the  procession  and  the  sacrifices,  and 
have  turned  their  steps  back  towards  Athens,  when  they  are  over- 
taken by  Polemarchus,  the  son  of  Cephalus,  who  constrains  them 
to  go  to  his  father's  house,  that,  the  festivities  all  over,  Socrates 
may  discourse,  as  he  was  wont,  with  himself  and  his  young  com- 
panions. There,  then,  the  company  is  assembled  in  the  court  of 
the  house,  grouped  in  a  circle  around  the  aged  host,  who  is  seated 
on  a  cushioned  chair,  a  garland  on  his  head  as  he  had  just  been 
sacrificing.  With  Cephalus  the  discourse  opens.  He  is  an  old 
man  of  an  intelligent,  serene  character,  making  no  complaint  of 
'the  burdens  of  age,  but  rather  rejoicing  in  it  as  bringing  relief 
from  disturbing  passions  ;  he  is  a  pattern  of  the  virtue  of  the 
older  and  now  receding  times,  that,  without  reflection,  stands  by 
the  laws  and  ordinances  of  the  country,  and  does  its  duty  with- 
out question  by  the  state  and  the  gods.  In  the  near  prospect  of 
death  he  says  that  he  looks  with  sweet  hope  into  the  retributions 
of  the  world  to  come,  untroubled  by  any  consciousness  of  injustice 
in  withholding  any  dues  to  gods  or  men.  Socrates  is  delighted 
with  the  words  and  tone  of  the  old  man,  but  he  takes  him  up  on 


276  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

his  implied  notion  of  justice  and  questions  its  correctness.  But 
Cephalus  has  no  mind  for  dialectics,  and  so,  pleading  that  he  must 
look  to  the  sacrifices,  he  quietly  slips  away,  bequeathing  the  argu- 
ment to  his  son.  Polemarchus  represents  a  morality  more  reflec- 
tive than  his  father's,  but  yet  of  a  subordinate  type,  resting  mostly 
upon  custom  or  the  tradition  of  the  elders.  He  is  well  read  in 
Simonides,  and  holds  with  him  that  justice,  as  rendering  what  is 
due,  looks  to  the  good  of  one's  friends  and  the  harm  of  one's 
foes ;  and  he  is  only  slowly  brought  at  last  by  Socrates  to  see  and 
admit  that  justice  being  in  its  nature  only  beneficent  can  do  only 
good  to  all  men,  even  to  one's  foes.  In  Thrasymachus  of  Chalce- 
don,  who  now  enters  the  lists  at  a  furious  pace,  we  have  exhibited 
a  type  of  the  sophists  of  the  time,  a  master  in  the  art  of  making 
a  sensation,  very  eager  of  generalizing,  but  equally  incapable  of 
the  process,  indifferent  to  truth,  prone  always  to  cut  rather  than 
untie  the  knot  of  a  question,  egotistic,  rude,  and  self-confident, 
but  when  worsted  in  an  argument,  admitting  with  assumed  grace 
what  he  cannot  rebut.  His  theory  of  justice  and  social  morality 
is  the  selfish  and  destructive  one.  Justice  is  only  the  interest  of 
the  stronger  —  only  might  makes  right,  the  sole  firm  bond  of  soci- 
ety is  the  will  of  the  stronger.  Nothing  can  be  more  instructive 
and  amusing  than  the  contrast  in  spirit  and  bearing  between  the 
duelists  in  this  dialectic  combat ;  the  coarse  violence  of  Thrasy- 
machus, and  the  genuine  Attic  urbanity  of  Socrates,  the  helpless 
throes  and  struggles  of  the  sophist  in  the  close  and  tenacious 
hold  of  the  philosopher.  But  the  strife  is  soon  over,  and  Thra- 
symachus in  a  melting  mood  of  perspiration,  and  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  blushing  for  shame,  is  forced  to  admit  that  injus- 
tice can  be  a  source  only  of  weakness,  and  justice  of  strength,  and 
that  the  just  man  must  be  good  and  happy,  and  the  unjust  bad 
and  wretched.  The  two  brothers,  Glaucon  and  Adeimantus,  who 
next  take  part  in  the  discourse,  stand  on  a  higher  intellectual 
and  moral  plane.  They  represent  the  best  part  of  young  Athens. 
They  have  in  them  a  native  philosophical  vein,  which  makes  them 
apt  for  thinking  and  averse  to  sophistry ;  but  seized  and  borne  on 
by  the  negative  spirit  of  their  times,  they  have  broken  away  from 
the  current  moral  and  religious  views,  and  have  reached  a  region 
of  honest  but  vigorous  doubt.  But  their  doubts,  without  invading 
the  integrity  of  their  heart  and  life,  are  serving  through  their  own 
intellectual  and  moral  action  as  the  means  of  transition  to  con- 
scious and  established  truth.  The  new  world  into  which  Socrates 


PLATO'S   REPUBLIC.  277 

is  to  usher  them,  finds  them  prepared  to  enter  in  ;  with  readiness 
they  apprehend  the  great  truths  he  imparts,  and  with  more  inde- 
pendence than  most  of  his  hearers  work  their  way  to  their  appro- 
priation through  his  stimulating  and  alluring  dialectic  process. 
The  doubts  which  these  brothers  express  go  down  to  the  nature 
and  being  of  justice  and  all  virtue.  Like  many  whose  minds  have 
been  illumined  with  a  purer  light,  they  cannot  see  how  "  wisdom 
is  justified  of  her  children."  They  ask  Socrates  whether  justice 
is  a  good  or  no,  and  if  it  is,  whether  absolute  or  only  relative, 
whether  indeed  it  is  a  thing  of  real  being  or  only  of  cunning 
appearance.  They  vividly  depict  the  unjust  man  as  prospering 
by  his  shrewdness,  and  winning  place,  fortune,  and  esteem,  and 
the  just  man  in  his  simplicity,  as  poor  and  homeless,  as  maligned, 
and  scourged,  and  crucified  ;  and  looking  on  this  picture  and  then 
on  this,  they  find  it  hard  even  with  their  best  intentions  to  accept 
the  high  view  of  Socrates,  that  it  is  a  greater  evil  to  do  injus- 
tice than  to  suffer  it.  They  are  also  troubled  by  the  conventional 
teaching  of  morality.  Parents  and  guardians  and  the  poets  too, 
all  inculcate  justice  not  for  itself  but  for  what  it  will  bring.  Be 
just  and  you  will  get  rewarded;  respectability  shall  be  yours, 
good  name,  high  place,  a  wealthy  marriage,  houses  and  lands  and 
money,  and  by  and  by,  too,  you  shall  walk  evermore  in  the  Elys- 
iau  fields.  In  their  perplexity  these  disciples  of  Socrates  turn  to 
their  master,  and  put  it  upon  him  to  show  them  what  justice  is  in 
itself,  and  how  of  itself,  and  apart  from  consequences,  it  makes 
the  just  man  happy.  Through  these  subordinate  persons  of  the 
dialogue  and  these  negative  ethical  views  the  way  is  now  opened 
for  the  chief  role  of  Socrates,  and  for  his  own  discourse  of  justice 
on  its  positive  side.  Socrates  accepts  the  situation  with  all  its 
acknowledged  difficulties,  and  undertakes  the  task  imposed  upon 
him.  But  assuming  that  all  morality  grows  out  of  the  relations 
of  men  to  one  another  in  civil  society  he  proposes  to  read  the 
great  subject  first  in  what  he  calls  the  "  larger  letters,"  and  after- 
wards in  the  "  smaller."  He  means  that  the  state  is  the  indi- 
vidual on  an  extended  scale,  or,  to  use  Milton's  expression,  it  is 
the  individual  man  "  writ  large,"  and  so  justice  is  first  to  be 
sought  and  found  in  the  state,  and  then  it  will  be  easily  discerned 
in  the  individual  man.  On  this  analogy  he  proceeds  to  the  con- 
struction of  his  ideal  state. 

It  is  needful  for  my  subject  to  present  only  the  chief  elements 
of  this  political  ideal,  and  these  as  they  belong  to  the  aim  of  the 


278  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

state,  to  its  constitution  and  its  essential  social  provisions.  The 
great  aim  of  the  state  is  in  Plato's  view  the  virtue  of  its  citizens, 
and  so  their  well-being ;  without  this,  all  ordinary  aims,  physical 
comfort,  wealth,  fame,  external  power,  are  all  worthless.  The  state 
is  an  institution  of  education,  the  true  university  ;  nurture  in 
knowledge  and  morality,  and  through  philosophy  as  the  expression 
of  highest  wisdom  and  truest  culture,  this  is  the  essential  mis- 
sion of  the  state.  Hence  Plato's  cardinal  principle,  the  absolute 
rule  of  philosophy,  and  so  the  rule  of  philosophers ;  or  as  we  have 
it  in  his  famous  words :  "  till  philosophers  are  rulers,  or  rulers  are 
philosophers,  there  will  be  no  end  to  the  ills  of  states  and  of  men." 
With  such  an  aim  as  this,  the  state  is  in  its  constitution  aristo- 
cratic ;  but  it  is  no  aristocracy  of  birth  or  wealth,  or  of  both  to- 
gether, but  of  virtue  and  knowledge,  of  men  of  largest  native 
and  trained  intelligence,  and  of  noblest  character.  Every  one  is 
to  render  the  state  the  service  for  which  by  nature  and  education 
he  is  best  fitted,  and  to  such  service  is  he  limited.  The  citizens  are 
divided  first  into  those  who  administer  public  affairs,  the  guardians 
of  the  state,  and  those  who  supply  the  common  wants  of  life ;  and 
then  the  guardians  are  subdivided  into  those  who  govern,  and 
those  who  protect  the  state.  Thus  there  are  three  classes,  the 
rulers,  the  soldiers,  and  the  laborers.  These  classes  are  of  the 
nature  of  castes,  inasmuch  as  each  is  wholly  confined  to  its  own 
sphere.  The  government  of  the  state  belongs  exclusively  to  the 
rulers,  and  its  protection  to  the  soldiers ;  and  these  two  classes  are 
excluded  from  all  industrial  business,  which  is  committed  solely 
to  the  third  or  laboring  class.  Thus  the  two  higher  classes  having 
absolutely  no  private  interests  and  pursuits,  are  supported  by  the 
commonwealth  through  the  labor  of  the  third  class.  These  classes 
constitute  the  many  in  the  one  state,  and  in  the  due  observance 
of  the  right  relations  between  them  lies  the  practical  virtue  of  the 
whole  state.  The  wisdom  of  such  a  constituted  state  is  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  ruling  class,  its  courage  in  the  protecting  class, 
in  their  just  and  fixed  conviction  of  what  are  worthy  and  what 
unworthy  objects  of  fear.  Its  temperance  or  self-control  resides 
not  in  one  class,  but  in  all  classes,  it  is  the  common  agreement, 
practically  and  in  theory,  in  recognizing  who  is  to  command,  and 
who  to  obey ;  and  finally,  its  justice  is  the  fundamental  quality  of 
the  whole  state,  in  which  it  lives  as  a  moral  atmosphere,  and  which 
consists  in  each  one  having  and  doing  only  and  just  what  belongs 
to  him  without  any  interference  with  what  belongs  to  others. 


PLATO'S  REPUBLIC.  279 

At  this  point,  before  proceeding  to  the  special  provisions  of  his 
state,  Socrates  turns,  and  professes  himself  able  after  having  read 
the  subject  in  the  large  letters,  now  to  read  it  in  the  small,  to 
determine  what  is  justice  in  men  after  having  determined  it  in 
society.  In  the  man  there  are  three  elements  corresponding  to 
the  three  classes  of  the  state  ;  these  are  reason  and  desire  as 
respectively  the  highest  and  the  lowest,  and  between  these  passion 
or  spirit,  which  is  the  ally  of  reason  unless  it  is  corrupted  by 
bad  training.  Thus,  as  in  the  state,  the  individual  man  is  wise 
by  virtue  of  the  reason,  courageous  by  virtue  of  the  spirit,  tem- 
perate when  the  reason  rules  with  the  consent  of  spirit  and  de- 
sire ;  he  is  just  when  each  of  *the  elements  of  his  nature  does 
its  own  proper  work  with  no  interference  with  that  of  the  others. 
Justice  is  thus  the  moral  harmony  of  the  soul,  its  true  health; 
while  injustice  is  disease  and  discord.  Justice  thus  discovered 
and  explained  through  this  assumed  analogy  of  man  and  civil 
society,  Plato  proceeds  to  fix  the  social  provisions  of  his  state. 
Very  briefly  let  me  mention  the  chief  of  these.  And  first,  as  to 
the  education  of  the  citizens :  from  Plato's  absolute  view  of  the 
function  of  the  state  it  necessarily  follows  as  essential,  that  the 
children  of  the  state  are  to  be  educated  by  itself,  and  for  itself  and 
for  its  own  ends.  No  writer,  ancient  or  modern,  has  put  forth 
more  comprehensive  views  than  Plato  of  the  nature  and  scope  of 
the  education  of  man,  as  covering  his  entire  life  and  being,  but 
yet  Plato's  conception  involves  elements  at  variance  alike  with 
nature  and  religion.  Two  things  are  to  be  mentioned  as  funda- 
mental ;  that  the  state,  being  absolute,  has  the  entire  control  of 
education,  and  that  the  education  is  limited  to  those  destined  to 
be  guardians.  Children  belong  from  their  birth  to  the  state ;  when 
born  they  are  put  directly  in  public  nurseries ;  they  are  not  to 
know  their  parents  and  their  parents  are  not  to  know  them.  The 
class  in  which  each  one  is  to  belong  is  determined  only  by  the 
government,  solely  on  the  ground  of  native  talent  and  character. 
The  education  of  all  is  planned  and  conducted  by  the  state ;  for 
how,  it  is  asked,  can  a  matter  so  vital  to  the  well-being  of  the 
commonwealth  be  left  to  the  caprice  of  individuals  ?  Plato  keeps 
to  the  traditional  Greek  curriculum  in  music  and  gymnastics,  but 
will  have  it  pursued  in  no  traditional,  but  in  a  wholly  new  way. 
Music  includes  not  only  the  science  and  art  of  harmonic  sounds,  but 
all  art  and  letters,  and  especially  poetry.  Gymnastics  must  look 
to  the  training  of  the  mind  as  well  as  of  the  body,  and  even  more. 


280  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

Music  and  gymnastics  together  are  to  secure  an  even  develop- 
ment of  body  and  mind,  a  union  of  force  and  gentleness,  of  manly 
vigor  and  moral  grace  and  excellence.  In  all  teaching  of  music 
proper,  and  of  art  and  poetry,  the  rulers  must  cultivate  simplicity 
and  love  of  truth,  and  allow  artistic  creations  only  of  the  truly 
noble  and  beautiful ;  especially  the  old  mythology  must  be  purged 
of  all  unworthy  conceptions  of  the  gods,  and  the  Deity  be  repre- 
sented as  only  and  unchangeably  good  and  true,  and  as  willing 
only  good  and  truth.  But  to  this  earlier  and  ordinary  training  is 
to  be  added  for  the  rulers  the  higher  and  consummate  education 
of  the  philosopher.  This  is  to  be  carried  beyond  youth  into  ripe 
manhood,  and  to  combine  true  kmowledge  with  practical  activity, 
and  to  inform  and  possess  the  mind  not  alone  with  the  harmonies 
of  sound,  and  with  the  beauties  of  letters,  but  with  the  ideas  of 
philosophy,  for  if  the  state  is  to  prosper  it  must  be  governed  by 
philosophers.  Through  successive  stages  of  knowledge  and  disci- 
pline the  soul  is  turned  from  changing  phenomena  to  changeless 
realities  of  being,  to  the  apprehension  and  appropriation  of  gen- 
eral ideas,  and  especially  the  highest  of  all,  the  idea  of  the  good. 
To  touch  briefly  upon  the  stages  of  this  education,  —  after  the 
more  playful  and  unconstrained  discipline  of  early  youth,  the 
natural  bent  of  all  now  discovered,  the  choicer  characters  from 
the  young  men  of  twenty  are  to  be  trained  more  rigorously  than 
before,  and  all  the  sciences  which  they  have  studied  as  detached 
they  must  now  study  as  correlative ;  at  thirty  the  choicest  of  all 
are  to  be  picked  from  the  rest,  and  for  five  years  continue  strenu- 
ously devoted  to  philosophy  ;  then  for  fifteen  years  to  get  experi- 
ence of  life  by  holding  subordinate  offices  in  the  state  ;  at  length 
at  fifty  they  come  to  their  task  as  rulers,  and  in  their  turn  order 
the  state  and  the  lives  of  men ;  and  so,  after  having  trained  up 
others  to  fill  their  places,  they  finally  depart  to  the  Islands  of  the 
Blest,  and  there  abide  in  an  everlasting  home.  Other  provisions 
followed  from  Plato's  conception  of  the  state,  which  are  far  less 
easy  to  accept.  The  absoluteness  given  to  the  state  made  neces- 
sary the  annulling  so  far  as  possible  of  all  private  interests. 
Hence  the  rulers  and  guardians  must  possess  no  private  property ; 
they  live  as  in  a  camp,  with  messes  and  shelter  in  common,  and 
all  that  is  needed  furnished  by  the  commonwealth ;  mortal  gold  is 
for  them  the  accursed  thing ;  theirs  is  the  gold  of  spiritual  riches 
and  righteousness.  Furthermore,  as  has  been  intimated,  Plato 
does  away  with  all  separate  family  life ;  and  along  with  the  rude 


PLATO'S   REPUBLIC.  281 

unsphering  of  woman's  domestic  life  consequent  upon  such  an 
institution,  he  claims  in  accordance  with  the  Socratic  doctrine  of 
the  equality  of  the  sexes  that  women  should  kave  the  same  pur- 
suits with  men,  alike  in  war  and  in  politics,  and  for  this  end  they 
should  have  the  same  education. 

Having  thus  established  in  the  search  for  the  nature  of  justice 
the  good  state  and  the  good  man,  Plato  passes  in  review  the  types 
of  inferior  states  and  inferior  men  in  order  to  settle  the  question 
of  the  necessary  tendency  of  justice  to  happiness,  and  to  show 
that  the  just  man  is  the  happy  man,  and  the  unjust  the  unhappy. 
This  review  makes  a  kind  of  philosophy  of  political  history, 
showing  by  what  causes  there  is  in  successive  downward  stages 
a  gradual  decline  of  public  and  private  virtue  and  happiness 
through  timocracy  as  the  rule  of  honor,  oligarchy,  where  rules 
the  passion  for  wealth,  and  democracy,  where  all  the  passions  are 
in  free  play,  down  to  the  lowest  depth  of  all,  the  tyrannical  gov- 
ernment and  the  tyrannical  man,  wherein  all  rule  centres  in  an 
all-absorbing  selfishness.  These  pictures  of  social  and  individual 
man  are  alike  graphic  and  instructive,  and  have  a  fresco  durability 
of  tone  and  coloring  which  is  quite  notable.  Of  them  all,  perhaps 
that  of  the  democracy  and  the  democrat  may  be  for  us  at  least 
the  most  entertaining.  The  democracy  looks  like  the  fairest  of 
all  constitutions,  it  is  so  charmingly  free  and  various,  so  embroid- 
ered, like  a  gay  spangled  dress,  with  all  forms  of  manners  and 
character.  And  what  a  place  for  one  who  is  in  quest  of  the  right 
sort  of  state ;  for  by  reason  of  its  liberty,  it  has  in  it  a  complete 
assortment  of  commonwealths,  and  you  can  go  to  it  as  you  would 
to  a  bazaar,  and  pick  out  the  one  that  suits  you  best.  And  then 
look  at  the  exquisite  meekness  and  calmness  of  men  in  the  demo- 
cracy who  have  been  tried  in  a  court  of  laws  and  judged  guilty 
just  for  doing  what  they  liked  !  Did  you  ever  notice  in  this  very 
flexible  commonwealth  how  these  gentlemen,  who  have  been  con- 
demned to  death  or  exile,  just  stay  all  the  same  and  parade  about 
the  streets,  like  heroes,  as  though  nobody  saw  or  cared  ?  And, 
most  of  all,  what  a  forgiving  spirit  the  democracy  has  !  what  a 
sublime  superiority  to  all  petty  considerations  of  aptitude  in  edu- 
cation and  character  for  high  places  of  trust  and  power !  how 
grandly  does  she  fling  away  all  thought  of  any  preliminary  train- 
ing as  needful  to  make  a  statesman,  and  delight  to  raise  a  man 
to  honor  if  he  only  says  that  he  loves  the  dear  people !  Truly  a 
charming  parti-colored,  lawless  government,  dispensing  equality  to 
equals  and  unequals  alike ! 


282  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

But  the  picture  of  profoundest  ethical  interest  is  that  of  the 
tyrannical  government  and  the  tyrannical  nature.  The  despot  of 
the  soul,  as  the  despot  of  the  state,  is  at  the  farthest  remove  from 
the  ideal  man  and  the  ideal  state.  Reason  is  dethroned  and 
trampled  under  foot,  and  passion  and  appetite  reign  with  ram- 
pant license  ;  "  the  state  of  man  like  to  a  little  kingdom  suffering 
then  the  nature  of  an  insurrection ;  "  he  is  at  war  with  himself,  in 
constant  fear  of  enemies  without  and  worse  enemies  within,  master 
of  others,  not  master  but  the  slave  of  himself,  though  outwardly 
and  to  superficial  observers  happy  yet  the  most  wretched  of 
men,  —  the  pitiable  spectacle  of  injustice  and  misery  indissolubly 
bound  together.  It  appears,  then,  from  these  and  other  like  con- 
siderations, Plato  continues,  that  to  maintain  through  justice  the 
inward  harmony  of  the  soul  is  the  first  and  highest  of  all  human 
aims ;  and  ever  will  the  just  man  form  himself  upon  the  pattern 
of  the  perfect  commonwealth,  which  doubtless  exists  in  heaven  if 
it  be  found  nowhere  on  earth.  And  now  that  it  has  been  shown 
that  justice  is  in  itself  the  just  man's  exceeding  great  reward,  we 
may  in  conclusion  speak  of  the  blessings  bestowed  upon  it  alike 
by  gods  and  men.  We  may  be  sure  that  all  circumstances,  how- 
soever untoward  they  seem,  will  yet  promote  his  highest  good. 
And  men,  though  they  may  waver  about  the  just  and  unjust  char- 
acter, will  finally  hold  to  the  one  and  despise  the  other.  And 
yet  all  earthly  awards  are  as  nothing  in  number  and  greatness 
compared  with  the  lot  that  awaits  the  just  and  the  unjust  after 
death.  And  this  is  now  described,  that  each  may  receive  the  full 
complement  of  recompense,  which  the  argument  is  bound  to  set 
forth.  In  this  way  Plato  glides  from  his  description  of  the  per- 
fect earthly  state  into  his  vision  of  the  future  world,  where  the 
just  awake  to  everlasting  life  and  the  unjust  to  shame  and  ever- 
lasting contempt.  And  so  at  last,  on  reaching  the  heights  of  the 
great  argument,  we  find  philosophy  fading  away  into  religion,  and 
the  broken,  dim  lights  of  earth  into  the  perfect  brightness  of  the 
heavens. 

The  state  as  thus  constructed  by  Plato  has  been  often  viewed 
as  an  enthusiast's  dream,  full  of  fantastic  ideas,  or  at  best  as  a 
fine  poetical  fiction,  informed  by  no  conscious  practical  purpose. 
But  no  one  who  studies  the  work  can  be  content  with  such  views 
as  these ;  he  will  reject  them  as  intellectually  false  and  morally 
insignificant  and  insipid.  Plato's  "  Republic  "  is  no  dream  or  chi- 
mera or  idle  fiction.  It  is  imaginary,  but  it  is  not  visionary  ;  it  is 


PLATO'S  REPUBLIC.  283 

certainly  unreal,  as  it  is  no  description  of  any  political  constitu- 
tion, existing  or  ever  existent,  as  the  institutions  of  Lycurgus  or 
of  Solon  or  the  American  Constitution  ;  it  is  also  not  only  a  world 
of  ethical  politics  all  unrealized,  but  the  reality  of  its  existence  is 
improbable,  relatively  to  any  known  state  of  man  and  society ; 
but  it  is  of  the  nature  of  a  true  ideal,  in  that  it  creates  and  sets 
forth  a  pattern  of  political  perfection,  which,  though  never  fully 
attainable,  is  yet  real  in  idea,  and  is  ever  to  be  striven  after  and 
by  approximation  made  as  nearly  as  possible  real  in  practice.  We 
conceive  as  Christians  of  a  state  of  perfect  peace  on  earth,  when 
men  will  turn  their  swords  into  plowshares  and  their  spears  into 
pruninghooks ;  but  though  we  deem  it  highly  probable  that  men 
will  ever  go  on  perfecting  and  using  their  implements  of  warfare, 
we  never  consider  the  Christian  conception  as  visionary  and  im- 
practicable. Nay,  is  Christianity  itself  a  dream  or  a  chimera 
because  it  gives  men  ideals  of  an  individual  and  social  perfection 
never  attainable  on  earth  ?  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  Plato's  state 
as  an  ideal,  that  it  combines  facts  of  human  experience  with  im- 
aginative conceptions  transcending  all  that  men  had  ever  known 
in  actual  life ;  it  looks  before  and  after  ;  it  is  conversant  with  all 
the  past  of  Athens  and  Greece,  but  not  content  to  abide  there  ;  it 
reaches  in  vision  far  into  the  future,  not  only  of  Greece,  but  of  the 
world  ;  it  is  Greek,  but  it  is  human  and  universal.  He  carries  to 
the  very  extreme  the  fundamental  ideas  of  Greek  politics  and 
society ;  but  yet  breaking  over  historical  limits,  he  passes  far 
beyond  all  the  received  ethical  and  religious  views.  He  lights  up 
and  quickens  the  dark  and  dying  political  forms  of  antiquity  with 
the  spirit  and  life  of  a  new  time,  which  he  seemed  to  see  afar  off, 
of  a  better  city  which  he  looked  for  as  yet  to  come.  Plato's  Re- 
public is  thus  ideal,  but  it  is  also  real ;  it  is  both  historical  and 
prophetic,  and  when  it  is  considered  in  these  two  aspects,  or  rather 
in  this  twofold  aspect,  it  is  most  fruitful  in  interest  and  influ- 
ence. « 

The  real  elements  of  the  polity  which  Plato  constructed  are 
readily  discovered  in  the  prevailing  political  views  of  the  Greeks, 
and  in  their  political  history.  While  it  is  true  of  Plato,  as  it  is 
often  said,  that  he  was  fond  of  flying  in  the  air,  it  is  no  less  true 
that  he  walked  the  solid  earth  and  trod  his  native  soil  of  Greece. 
His  perfect  state,  ideal  as  it  is,  rested  upon  the  real  foundation  of 
a  Grecian  commonwealth.  The  absoluteness  of  his  state  in  the 
control,  and  if  need  be  in  the  suppression,  of  all  personal  interests 


284  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

is  in  harmony  with  the  established  principle  of  Grecian  politics, 
and  some  of  its  provisions,  so  repulsive  to  modern  ideas,  as  the 
doing  away  with  property  and  with  separate  family  life,  have  at 
least  their  germs  in  the  actual  manners  and  institutions  of  some 
of  the  Grecian  states.  According  to  the  Greek  political  theory, 
the  individual  was  wholly  subordinated  to  the  state ;  the  state  was 
supreme,  and  to  it  the  citizens  subjected  and  sacrificed  all  per- 
sonal ends,  inclinations,  and  objects.  This  is  especially  true  of 
the  Dorian  states  and  most  of  all  of  Sparta,  where  the  government 
moulded  the  whole  being  of  the  citizens,  their  very  sentiments  and 
thoughts,  bending  to  its  will  all  private,  family,  and  social  life. 
There  was  at  least  an  approximation  to  Plato's  provision  of  com- 
munity of  goods,  for  the  Spartan  citizens  were  allowed  in  case  of 
need  to  use  the  property  of  others,  just  as  if  their  own.  As  in 
Plato,  too,  the  citizens  were  prohibited  the  use  of  gold  and  silver ; 
they  lived  as  in  a  camp,  and  messed  in  common ;  the  education 
was  under  exclusive  state  control,  and  with  gymnastics  was  for 
both  sexes  together ;  and  the  arrangements  for  marriage  and 
family  life  allowed  an  exchange  of  children  and  of  wives.  So, 
too,  most  stringent  measures  were  taken  against  all  innovations 
upon  national  customs ;  foreign  travel  was  forbidden,  poets  and 
writers  whose  influence  was  feared  were  banished  the  country ; 
and  in  music  —  so  much  was  the  Spartan  world  governed  —  a 
performer  was  restricted  to  a  certain  number  of  strings  for  his 
lyre.  Such  facts  as  these  are  sufficient  to  show  that  some  of 
Plato's  political  arrangements,  which  have  for  the  modern  world 
so  strange  an  air,  were  in  historical  relation  to  real  institutions, 
which  were  native  to  the  soil  of  Grecian  politics.  And  if  Plato 
embodied  the  spirit  and  principles  of  these  institutions  in  bolder 
and  more  sharply  defined  forms  than  had  ever  existed  in  reality, 
this  procedure  may  be  readily  explained  by  the  facts  of  Grecian 
history,  and  the  influence  which  they  had  upon  his  views.  Since 
the  beginning  of  the  Peloponnesian»wars  the  long  and  bitter  ex- 
periences of  the  Greeks  had  seemed  to  show  him  that  the  welfare 
of  states  was  periled  most  of  all  by  the  selfishness  of  individual 
citizens,  and  in  the  tragic  act  of  the  Athenian  democracy  in  exe- 
cuting his  revered  master,  he  thought  that  he  read  the  doom  of  its 
dissolution  as  a  government  of  wild  individualism.  Like  many 
modern  thinkers  and  theorists,  he  turned  to  the  idea  of  an  abso- 
lute state-rule  as  the  only  sure  safeguard  against  such  evils,  like 
Hobbes  and  Locke,  who  looked  in  their  common  aversion  to  demo- 


PLATO'S   REPUBLIC.  285 

cracy,  the  one  to  an  aristocracy  as  the  surest  adversary  against 
arbitrary  power,  and  the  other  to  the  will  of  one  man  as  the  only 
means  of  all  men's  happiness  ;  like  recent  reactionary  statesmen 
in  Germany  who  would  crush  all  excesses  of  liberty  by  crushing 
all  liberty  itself ;  so  Plato  aimed  from  like  motives  to  absorb  all 
individual  wills  in  the  one  wise  absolute  will  of  his  aristocratic 
government.  The  greatest  good  of  a  state,  he  argues,  is  unity, 
the  greatest  evil  is  discord,  but  there  will  be  unity  and  no  discord 
only  when  there  are  no  private  inclinations  and  interests.  Thus 
by  doing  away  with  property  he  would  make  impossible  the  strife 
of  private  interests  with  the  general  good ;  he  would  keep  out,  as 
he  thought,  all  covetousness  by  having  nothing  that  men  could 
covet,  and  selfishness  itself  by  having  nothing  that  one  could  call 
one's  own. 

But  there  are  other  elements  of  the  Platonic  Republic,  and 
these  the  most  peculiar  and  controlling,  which  have  no  historical 
connection  with  the  institutions  and  legislation  of  Sparta  or  of 
any  other  Grecian  commonwealth.  The  chief  of  these,  and  that 
which  makes  the  corner-stone  of  Plato's  political  structure,  is  the 
philosophical  education  of  the  rulers,  and  the  absolute  power  of 
rulers  who  by  such  an  education  have  become  masters,  in  theory 
and  practice,  of  true  wisdom  and  virtue.  By  such  an  education 
and  power  of  the  governing  class,  which  was  foreign  to  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  Spartan  system,  he  seems  to  have  aimed  to  reinforce 
the  fundamental  principle  of  all  Greek  politics  which  had  been 
tried  and  found  wanting,  and  to  construct  an  ideal  state,  which 
should  be  made  a  well-ordered,  harmonious  whole,  through  the 
perfected  knowledge  and  character  of  absolute  rulers.  It  has  been 
often  suggested  that  Plato  was  indebted  to  Pythagoras,  in  part,  at 
least,  for  this  idea,  and  certainly  the  celebrated  society,  or  order 
of  brethren,  which  was  established  by  that  philosopher  bears  a 
striking  resemblance  in  some  of  its  features  to  that  of  the  ideal 
guardians  of  Plato's  Republic.  The  Pythagorean  order  was  not, 
it  is  true,  in  its  nature  a  political  body ;  it  was  rather  a  religious 
brotherhood,  and,  indeed,  has  been  compared  as  such  with  the  great 
order  founded  by  Loyola ;  but  it  was  kindred  in  its  moral  aims, 
in  its  severe  moral  and  intellectual  training  and  its  way  of  life, 
to  Plato's  select  class  of  philosophical  sovereigns.  Like  Pythago- 
ras in  his  order,  Plato  in  his  Republic  aspired  to  a  supremacy 
of  reason,  and  sought  by  such  exalted  control  to  form  a  human 
state  which  might  in  its  harmony  be  an  image  of  the  moral  gov- 


286  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

ernment  of  the  world.  But  far  more  than  to  Pythagoras  was 
Plato  indebted  to  himself  and  to  the  ideas  of  his  own  philosophy, 
to  his  own  ideal  theory,  for  the  ruling  principle  of  his  common- 
wealth, lie  looked  upon  all  the  objects  of  the  world  of  sense  as 
only  wavering  images  of  unchanging  realities  in  a  world  of  intel- 
ligence, the  whole  visible  and  temporal  world  itself  as  only  an 
imperfect  appearance  of  a  world  invisible  and  eternal ;  he  believed 
that  it  was  for  the  reason  of  man  to  rise  by  reflection  and  contem- 
plation from  this  lower  world  to  that  higher  one,  from  the  study 
of  phenomena  to  rise  to  the  vision  and  perfect  enjoyment  of  ideas, 
and  to  God  himself,  as  the  supreme  idea  of  all,  and  the  One  Being. 
But  as  he  taught  in  his  allegorical  myth,  most  men  live  only  in 
that  lower  world  of  sense,  they  are  denizens  of  the  cave,  and  dwell 
amid  its  idols ;  they  walk  in  darkness,  and  see  not  the  truth ;  the 
philosophers  alone  have  been  turned  from  darkness  to  light,  from 
empty  shadows  to  substantial  realities,  and  have  risen  through  the 
love  and  steadfast  pursuit  of  wisdom  to  the  world  of  intelligence, 
and  gazed  ever  upon  its  sun,  the  idea  of  good.  It  is  only  these 
who  by  the  fullest  development  of  their  individual  personal  freedom 
in  the  higher  philosophical  education  have  reached  the  knowledge 
of  being,  and  of  the  laws  of  man's  life,  who  are  fitted  to  be  the 
teachers  and  guides  of  society,  to  descend  from  their  heaven  of 
contemplation  to  the  den  of  earth  to  promote  the  good  of  their 
fellow-men ;  in  short,  by  their  absolute  supremacy  of  rule,  to  form 
the  perfect  state  and  administer  its  affairs.  How  could  it  be  hoped, 
he  argues,  that  the  mass  of  men  would  at  first  voluntarily  submit 
to  this  rule,  into  the  reasonableness  and  necessity  of  which  they 
have  no  insight,  and  which  they  might  consider  an  intolerable  lim- 
itation of  their  sensuous  nature  ?  And,  on  the  other  hand,  how 
could  the  philosophers  be  adequate  to  their  great  office,  except  by 
the  renunciation  of  all  lower  occupations  and  pleasures,  which 
always  act  as  disturbing  agencies  on  man's  higher  life,  and  by  the 
abnegation  of  all  private  interests,  which  hinder  the  general  go^d 
and  distract  and  rend  the  commonwealth?  These  are  the  chief 
elements  of  Plato's  state ;  with  some,  which  as  we  have  seen  were 
historical,  he  sought  to  unite  others  only  ideal,  and  difficult,  per- 
haps impossible,  of  such  union ;  requiring  conditions  not  then  ex- 
isting, and  since  seen  only  in  part,  to  be  fully  known  only  in  that 
ever  future,  the  light  of  which  even  at  this  distance  he  seemed  to 
discern,  which  is  ever  alluring  the  hopes  and  drawing  the  faith  of 
mankind.  With  whatever  errors  it  contains,  whether  the  smaller 


PLATO'S   REPUBLIC.  287 

or  the  greater,  when  its  far-reaching,  general  views  are  contem- 
plated, and  especially  its  lofty  ethical  spirit  and  aims,  we  may 
well  pardon  its  more  enthusiastic  students,  who  prefer  to  err  with 
Plato  than  to  be  right  with  some  of  the  so-called  practical  states- 
men and  legislators  of  subsequent  times.  With  Plato,  the  individ- 
ual was  to  be  nothing  without  the  state,  and  yet  the  ruling  citi- 
zens were  not  to  be  content  within  the  range  of  political  activity, 
but  to  aspire  after  far  higher  ends.  The  republic  was  to  be  a  realm 
of  virtue ;  but  it  was  not  the  civic  virtue  of  the  Greek  commu- 
nities which  had  in  view  the  attainment  of  political  advantages 
and  objects,  and  so  had  a  recompense  out  of  itself ;  but  it  was  a 
virtue  of  an  ethical  quality,  which  was  the  fruit  of  the  deepest 
and  richest  individual  culture,  which  found  its  reward  partly  in 
itself,  and  looked  for  it  in  its  fullness  in  a  future  state  of  being, 
where  all  the  jarring  moral  discord*  of  the  present  life  were  to  be 
completely  harmonized. 

Of  this  ideal  state  Mr.  Jowett  has  made  the  profound  remark 
that  Plato  attempted  a  task  really  impossible,  which  was  to  unite 
the  past  of  Greek  history  with  the  future  of  philosophy.  If  we 
take  this  remark  as  Mr.  Jowett  probably  meant  it,  in  the  full  Pla- 
tonic sense  of  philosophy,  this  task  seems  yet  more  impossible,  for 
it  was  to  unite  all  that  past  of  Greece,  so  rich  and  yet  so  poor, 
with  all  the  future  of  religion  as  it  was  to  be  formed  and  perfected 
by  Christianity  and  the  Christian  church.  By  many  writers,  in- 
deed, the  analogy  has  been  noticed  between  the  conceptions  of 
Plato  and  those  which  gradually  came  into  being  and  shaped 
themselves  into  organic  form  and  life  in  the  earlier  Christian 
world,  in  church  and  state.  When  we  remember  the  great  influ- 
ence of  Plato's  philosophy  upon  the  whole  course  of  philosophical 
and  religious  thought  in  the  first  Christian  centuries,  we  may 
well  expect  to  find  traces  of  it  in  the  theology  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  church  in  its  earlier  history.  In  the  rise  and 
establishment  of  Christianity  all  the  great  thinkers  and  writers 
on  both  sides  were  versed  in  Plato,  and  borrowed  from  him  their 
weapons,  both  of  attack  and  defense.  The  names  of  Philo,  of 
Plotinus  and  Porphyry  among  the  Neo-Platonists,  and  of  the 
church  fathers,  of  Justin  the  Martyr,  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
Origen,  and  Augustine,  afford  eminent  illustrations  of  this  fact. 
Indeed,  the  whole  philosophy  of  the  church  fathers  and  a  large 
part  of  their  theology  exhibit  a  systematic  and  long-continued 
effort  to  employ  Greek  speculation  for  the  understanding  and 


288  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

propagation  of  Christian  doctrine.  When  we  recall  these  facts, 
we  are  less  surprised  to  discover  upon  a  nearer  comparison  that 
while  the  Christian  religion  is  nowise  indebted  to  Platonism  for 
its  origin  and  its  truths,  yet  that  in  the  ecclesiastical  form  and 
the  theological  views  of  the  mediaeval  church  the  ideas  of  Plato 
in  his  "  Republic  "  seem  like  prophecies  to  have  passed  over  into 
fulfillment.  We  have  seen  that  in  Plato  the  state  is  in  its  nature 
an  organized  ministry  of  morality ;  its  very  function  is  to  train 
its  citizens  to  virtue  and  so  to  true  well-being,  to  turn  their  eye 
and  their  mind  to  a  higher  and  spiritual  world,  and  to  conduct 
them  to  that  perfect  happiness  after  death  which,  as  taught  in 
the  myth  as  the  culminating  end  of  Plato's  ideal,  is  set  forth 
as  the  final  goal  of  all  striving  and  struggling  of  man's  earthly 
career.  Is  there  not  a  resemblance  in  the  idea  of  such  a  philo- 
sophical state  to  the  revealed  truth  in  the  Christian  religion  of 
an  invisible,  divine  kingdom,  of  which  the  church  is  the  earthly 
and  visible  form  ?  Further,  as  the  rule  in  Plato's  state  was  to  be 
exercised  by  philosophers,  because  they  alone,  through  science, 
were  possessed  of  true  wisdom,  so  in  the  mediaeval  church  a  like 
position  was  accorded  to  the  priestly  order,  on  the  theory  that  to 
them  alone  had  been  disclosed  the  world  of  revealed  truth.  The 
Platonic  guardians  had  some  counterpart  in  the  princes  and 
knights  who  were  to  protect  and  defend  the  church  and  execute 
the  orders  of  the  priests ;  and  certainly  Plato's  third,  or  laboring 
class,  of  whom  we  hear  scarcely  more  than  they  were  to  till  the 
soil  and  be  governed,  gives  no  inapt  type  in  idea  of  the  mass  of 
mankind  who  made  up  the  laity  of  the  mediaeval  church. 

There  are  also  points  of  resemblance  presented  by  these  politi- 
cal arrangements  of  Plato,  to  which  in  modern  times  we  are  wont 
to  take  exception.  Even  in  the  days  of  the  apostles,  as  we  learn 
from  Scripture,  "  all  that  believed  were  together,  and  had  all 
things  common ;  "  and  as  Mr.  Jowett  has  remarked,  "  this  princi- 
ple has  been  maintained  as  a  counsel  of  perfection  in  almost  all 
ages  of  the  church."  The  entire  Christian  monastic  life  in  all  its 
various  forms  involves  such  an  adoption  of  community  of  prop- 
erty as  was  applied  by  Plato  to  his  ruling  and  military  orders ; 
monachism,  indeed,  in  its  original  meaning  and  form,  as  a  solitary 
life  in  the  desert,  necessarily  presupposed  a  voluntary  abandon- 
ment of  earthly  possessions.  It  was  also  essentially  the  same  view 
and  mode  of  life  out  of  which,  in  both  cases,  this  social  provision 
arose ;  it  was  the  old  dualistic  view  of  man's  nature  and  earthly 


PLATO'S  REPUBLIC.  289 

being,  and  its  consequent  asceticism,  which  required  the  crushing 
out  of  the  sensuous  element  in  man  in  order  to  secure  the  devel- 
opment of  the  rational,  and  seclusion  from  the  world  as  necessary 
for  nearness  to  God  and  divine  things.  In  the  one  case  it  is  a 
philosophical  asceticism,  in  the  other  a  religious.  Plato's  ideal 
philosophical  ruler  is  in  principle  as  truly  an  ascetic  as  was  ever 
the  most  real  monk  of  the  mediaeval  church.  His  ideal  goal  is 
something  higher  than  the  real  one  of  Symeon,  the  celebrated  Pil- 
lar-Saiiit ;  it  is  nothing  less  spiritually  than  absolute  self-abnega- 
tion. On  entering  the  class  of  guardians  he  renounces  all  rights 
of  property  and  person ;  and  as  he  goes  up  through  the  stages  of 
his  elaborate  education  for  government,  he  is  so  absoroed  in  the 
contemplation  of  pure  ideas  as  to  be  dead  to  earth  and  all  earthly 
good.  Only  by  merging  and  losing  individual  will  in  reason  does 
he  come  to  be  spiritually  free,  and  so  by  "  having  nothing  "  "  to 
possess  all  things ;  "  and  only  when  thus  he  is  master  of  self,  and 
the  possessor  of  all  things,  is  he  fitted  to  teach  and  govern  others. 
There  is  still  another  feature  of  this  analogy  to  which,  with 
some  hesitation,  I  may  call  attention.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
yet,  as  has  been  observed  by  an  acute  German  writer,  there  is  also 
a  resemblance  in  principle  between  Plato's  arrangements  for  the 
marriage  relations  of  his  guardians  and  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy, 
as  first  instituted  by  Gregory  Seventh,  and  yet  existing  in  the 
Roman  church.  These  arrangements  are  utterly  repugnant  to 
all  modern  and  Christian  sentiments,  as  involving  to  some  extent 
community  of  wives  and  children.  But  we  must  do  justice  to 
Plato  as  not  only  a  man  of  loftiest  personal  character,  but  also  as 
a  writer  who  ever  defended  right  against  wrong  and  virtue  against 
vice.  What  is  to  be  noticed  here  is,  that  Plato's  strict  regulation 
touching  the  marriages  of  his  guardians  and  the  church  prohibi- 
tion to  the  priests  of  marriage  at  all  rest  substantially  upon  the 
same  grounds.  Plato  forbids  separate  family  relations  to  his  guar- 
dians, in  order  that  they  may  give  themselves  exclusively  to  the 
state,  just  as  Gregory  imposed  celibacy  upon  his  clergy  that  they 
might  devote  their  lives  undivided  and  entire  to  the  church.  In 
both  cases  family  ties  and  interests  were  deemed  hostile  to  aims 
which  were  constructively  paramount.  It  is  also  most  important 
to  remember  that  the  Platonic  provisions  were  most  rigidly  restric- 
tive of  sexual  relations  between  the  male  and  female  guardians. 
Indeed,  personal  inclination  was  reduced  to  the  minimum,  ideally 
even  to  the  vanishing  point,  and  impulse  put  under  the  absolute 


290  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

control  of  reason.  In  his  own  words,  "  all  things  were  to  proceed 
in  an  orderly  fashion,  and  licentiousness  as  an  unholy  thing  to  be 
forbidden  by  the  rulers."  In  the  sexual  functions,  as  in  all  others, 
the  citizens  were  organs  of  the  state,  marriage  was  not  a  matter 
of  desire  or  interest,  but  of  duty ;  it  was  regarded  as  holy,  celebrated 
only  at  cei'tain  appointed  festivals,  the  ceremony  originated,  and 
the  couples  selected  by  the  government ;  children  were  to  be  born 
when  and  just  as  the  state  needed,  and  born  only  of  those  whom 
the  state  chose,  and  chose  distinctly  with  reference  to  the  im- 
provement of  the  race,  or,  to  use  Plato's  expression,  the  purity 
and  nobleness  of  the  breed.  It  was,  then,  not  license  which  was 
the  aim  of*  these  provisions  of  the  ideal  state ;  it  was  rather  re- 
nunciation and  self-denial,  just  as  the  purpose  of  the  church  in 
the  institution  and  observance  of  clerical  celibacy ;  and  it  is  an 
interesting  question  whether  it  might  not  have  been  quite  as  well 
for  the  morality  of  the  world  and  the  improvement  of  the  race  if 
Gregory  and  his  successors  had  adopted  a  Platonic  restrictive 
marriage  for  their  clergy  instead  of  enjoining  absolute  continence. 
If  we  come  now  to  times  yet  farther  removed  from  Plato,  and 
consider  in  the  light  of  modern  ideas  and  a  pure  Christianity 
alike  his  ideal  state  and  the  form  of  the  church  with  which  it  has 
been  compared,  we  find  much  to  desire,  much  to  object  to  in  both, 
and  hardly  more  in  the  one  than  in  the  other. 

Here  it  is  easy  for  us  to  see  that  the  capital  fault  of  Plato's 
politics  lies  in  his  narrow  view  of  the  relations  and  rights  of  the 
individual  in  the  state  and  in  society.  The  personal  freedom,  the 
personality  itself  of  the  individual  and  his  capacity  for  utmost 
improvement,  was  introduced  by  him  into  his  state,  but  it  was 
limited  to  the  first  two  of  his  three  classes  of  citizens ;  indeed,  in 
its  complete  application  it  was  confined  to  the  first  class ;  they 
alone  were  capable  of  his  high  education,  and  so  alone  capable  of 
ruling.  The  third  or  laboring  class,  the  multitude  or  the  demos, 
were  of  little  account ;  they  were  there  to  work  for  their  betters 
and  unconditionally  submit  to  them ;  to  be  cared  for,  indeed,  but 
by  governing,  and  to  be  thus  cared  for  and  governed  all  too  much. 
In  his  myth  of  the  earth-born  men,  these  were  the  men  of  brass 
and  iron,  made  to  be  husbandmen  and  tradesmen,  and  by  nature 
subordinate  to  their  brethren  of  gold  and  silver  make,  who  were 
born  to  be  philosophers  and  rulers.  Plato  thus  introduced  hi  its 
application  to  his  higher  orders  a  political  and  social  principle 
which  was  not  only  adverse  to  his  historical  one  of  the  absoluteness 


PLATO'S  REPUBLIC.  291 

of  the  state,  but  was  subversive  of  it ;  in  its  nature  and  legitimate 
consequences  it  looked  to  a  form  of  society  for  which  Plato  himself 
and  the  ancient  world  were  unprepared,  which  should  have  its  foun- 
dation in  the  spiritual  equality  of  all  men.  So,  too,  in  the  Christian 
politics  of  the  mediaeval  hierarchy  the  common  people  of  the  laity 
hold  a  like  subordinate  place  and  from  a  similar  view ;  they  are  not 
true  citizens  of  the  heavenly  state,  they  are  incapable  of  citizenship, 
they  are  like  the  common  people  of  Aristotle's  state,  they  are 
not  so  much  members  of  the  commonwealth,  but  rather  adjuncts 
to  it,  or  at  best  a  kind  of  Jewish  proselytes  at  the  gate ;  they  are 
subject  to  the  authority  and  direction  of  the  select  few,  of  the 
priestly  order,  to  whom  alone  has  been  opened  the  world  of  re- 
vealed truth  and  who  hold  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Such  a  conception  falls  short  no  less  than  Plato's  of  the  Christian 
ideal  of  that  divine  spiritual  community  whose  friendly  doors  ever 
stand  open  to  all  who  will  enter  in,  wherein  all  men  are  not  only 
fellow-citizens  but  kings  and  priests  unto  God. 

There  are  other  ideal  views  of  Plato's  state  which  have  been 
partially  realized  in  the  modern  world,  and  others  which  are  yet 
ideal  and  prophetic,  still  looking  onward  to  some  better  future 
to  come.  His  view  of  a  system  of  education  as  public  and  exclu- 
sively under  state  control,  and  designed  for  all  and  of  both  sexes, 
has  certainly  found  its  way  in  part  in  some  modern  states,  and  is 
finding  its  way  entire  into  all ;  in  some  states  even  his  provision 
of  such  an  education  as  compulsory  has  already  been  adopted.  It 
may  be  found  as  the  centuries  go  on  that  his  ideal  anticipations 
will  be  completely  realized,  and  that  such  a  lofty,  intellectual, 
and  moral  education  as  he  sketched  for  only  the  best  citizens  of  a 
single  state  is  by  and  by  to  be  read  in  the  "  large  letters  "  of  an 
education  of  like  fine  quality  and  extended  range  for  all  the  citi- 
zens of  all  states,  for  all  mankind.  And  certainly  the  utmost 
human  wisdom  and  striving  can  go  no  farther  than  to  make  real 
in  the  life  of  all  men  the  thought  which  Plato  was  the  first  to 
express,  that  the  whole  of  man's  earthly  life  is  one  great  sphere 
of  education  for  another  life,  in  which  by  a  higher  education  he  is 
to  make  endless  progress  in  knowledge  and  goodness. 

But  how  will  Plato's  grand  central  idea  be  received  in  modern 
politics,  that  the  rulers  of  the  state  must  be  philosophers  ?  Per- 
haps with  the  same  derisive  laughter  which  Plato  himself  said 
would  greet  it  on  its  first  enunciation.  In  his  best  humor  he  says 
to  Glaucon,  just  as  he  was  reaching  this  statement,  "  and  now 


292  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

comes  the  huge  wave  which  is  to  deluge  me  with  laughter  and 
infamy."  And  Glaucon  tells  him,  when  he  has  heard  it,  that  all 
the  world  will  run  at  him  might  and  main,  and  that  he  will  only 
get  well  jeered  for  his  pains  and  penalties.  Nevertheless,  when 
rightly  apprehended,  is  it  not  a  true  idea,  and  has  not  the  pro- 
gress of  modern  states  kept  pace  with  the  process  of  its  fulfill- 
ment ?  Plato  might  indeed  search  with  a  candle  in  modern  states, 
and  never  discover  his  philosophical  rulers  in  the  heads  of  govern- 
ment, whether  imperial,  royal,  or  republican.  And  yet,  in  com- 
parison with  earlier  times,  it  has  come  to  be  universally  recog- 
nized that  all  statesmen  and  great  leaders  in  public  affairs  must 
not  only  be  educated  men,  but  also  by  study  and  reflection  have 
attained  to  the  mastery  of  general  views  and  principles  in  all 
departments  of  thought  and  action.  What  but  this  is  taught  by 
the  career  of  a  Bismarck  in  civil  and  a  von  Moltke  in  military 
affairs?  And  Plato  was  also  well  aware  of  the  difficulty,  so 
familiar  to  the  many  and  the  few,  the  wise  and  the  unwise,  of 
carrying  theory  over  into  practice,  and  of  combining  the  two  in 
the  character  and  lives  of  men,  of  uniting  thought  with  action, 
the  pursuit  of  ideal  truth  with  the  exercise  of  practical  influence 
in  government  and  society.  He  makes  Adeimantus  say,  what  has 
been  ever  echoed  by  the  multitude,  that  your  philosopher-states- 
men, and  ever  and  most  of  all  the  best  of  them,  are  useless  to  the 
world,  and  are  made  useless  by  the  very  thought  and  study  which 
they  extol  so  much.  But  Plato  reminds  him  that  while  the  so- 
called  practical  politicians  may  do  well  enough  for  ordinary  times, 
it  is  only  the  statesmen  who  are  versed  in  general  principles,  the 
philosophers  who  are  masters  of  ideas,  who  show  their  superiority, 
and  are  alone  of  any  avail,  when  there  arise,  as. arise  they  must, 
great  exigencies  and  crises  in  public  life,  the  great  and  over- 
whelming tides  in  the  affairs  of  the  states  ;  indeed,  to  use  his  own 
figure,  when  the  storm  is  up  and  the  ship  of  state  in  imminent 
peril  they  alone  are  the  true  pilots  and  captains,  though  in  fair 
weather  and  a  smooth  sea  they  are  derided  as  babblers  and  star- 
gazers.  With  a  singular  insight,  too,  does  he  penetrate  to  the 
causes  of  this  evil  name  which  philosophy  has  with  the  multitude. 
Partly,  they  have  no  knowledge  of  it,  or  taste  of  it,  or  sympathy 
with  it ;  and  so  they  dislike  and  deride  it.  Partly,  too,  they  have 
seen  only  bad  specimens  of  philosophers  in  statesmen  ;  sometimes 
these  are  mere  counterfeits  of  the  true  coin,  half-educated  states- 
men, who  have  been  very  clever  in  certain  crafts,  and  aspiring  to 


PLATO'S   REPUBLIC.  293 

something  higher  have  made  a  leap  from  these  crafts  into  phi- 
losophy, rushing  in,  fools  as  they  are,  where  finer  and  better 
natures  fear  to  tread.  Then,  too,  these  genuine  natures  have  so 
often  missed  their  high  destiny  through  the  action  of  manifold 
adverse  forces ;  they  have  been  spoiled  by  contact  with  the  world, 
corrupted  by  public  opinion,  or  borne  down  by  temptations  to  per- 
sonal or  party  issues.  Most  graphic  is  the  picture  here  drawn 
of  these  debasing  and  corrupting  powers  of  the  world,  and  very 
striking  the  remark,  that  while  things  remain  as  they  are,  if  even 
one  is  saved  and  comes  to  good,  it  must  be  by  the  power  of  God, 
and  not  by  his  own  strength.  But  he  tells  his  young  friends  that 
they  are  nevertheless  not  to  despair  of  philosophy.  By  and  by, 
Heaven  only  knows  where  or  when,  in  some  fair  clime  in  some 
golden  time,  there  shall  come  upon  the  public  scene  the  true  phi- 
losophers rightly  and  perfectly  trained,  and  when  men  shall  once 
see  them  they  shall  straightway  be  of  another  mind,  and  then 
shall  our  ideal  polity  come  into  being. 

There  is  one  more  of  Plato's  views  which  is  vital  to  his  whole 
system,  to  which  I  must  at  least  briefly  allude.  This  is  the  admis- 
sion of  women  to  his  class  of  guardians,  and  to  the  discharge  of  all 
its  functions  alike  in  peace  and  in  war,  and  to  all  its  preliminary 
training  and  education.  Of  course  this  whole  procedure  grows 
out  of  his  opinion  of  the  essential  equality  of  the  sexes ;  and  in  all 
his  ideas  on  this  subject  he  is  not  only  far  in  advance  of  antiquity, 
but  even  of  all  modern  times,  and  of  the  foremost  theorists  in  our 
own  day.  Indeed,  no  modern  advocate  of  this  now  much  dis- 
cussed doctrine  of  the  equality  of  woman  to  man  has  put  it  upon 
so  square  a  basis  as  Plato.  He  contends  that  the  restricting  of 
women  to  housekeeping  and  indoor  occupations,  or  any  separation 
of  the  life  and  pursuits  of  the  sexes,  is  unnatural,  and  that  the 
real  order  of  nature  is  a  similarity  of  training  and  all  subsequent 
pursuits.  This  he  argues  from  the  analogy  of  the  sexes  in  other 
animals.  All  male  and  female  animals  are  put  to  the  same  uses, 
why  not,  then,  the  two  sexes  in  man?  or,  as  Mr.  Jowett  very 
strongly  puts  it  after  Plato,  "  dogs  are  not  divided  into  he's  and 
she's,  nor  do  we  take  the  masculine  gender  out  to  hunt  and  leave 
the  females  at  home  to  look  after  the  puppies."  Women  are  the 
same  in  kind  as  men,  with  only  a  difference  of  degree  in  favor  of 
men.  If  women  differ  in  capacity  from  men,  so  men  differ  equally 
in  capacity  from  one  another.  The  only  organic  difference  is  in 
the  sexual  function  itself ;  and  apart  from  this,  as  Plato  himself 


294  PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 

puts  it  in  a  single  sentence,  "  None  of  the  occupations  which  com- 
prehend the  ordering  of  a  state  belong  to  woman  as  woman,  nor 
yet  to  man  as  man ;  but  natural  gifts  are  to  be  found  in  both 
sexes  alike,  and,  so  far  as  her  nature  is  concerned,  the  woman  is 
admissible  to  all  pursuits  as  well  as  the  man  ;  though  in  all  of 
them  the  woman  is  weaker  than  the  man."  However  much  men 
now  may  differ  from  Plato  in  this  view  of  the  equality  of  the 
sexes,  yet  certainly  all  will  agree  that  his  conception  of  the  posi- 
tion due  to  woman  in  society  and  his  demand  for  her  highest 
education,  intellectual  and  moral,  not  only  show  his  own  remark- 
able superiority  to  the  ideas  of  his  own  time  and  country,  but 
also  that  they  are  singularly  coincident  with  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity and  of  Christian  civilization.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
examine  in  comparison  with  Plato's  "  Republic  "  the  many  works 
of  a  similar  kind  which  have  been  written  in  subsequent  times. 
All  these,  such  as  the  "  De  Republica  "  of  Cicero  in  ancient  and  the 
"  Utopia  "  of  More  in  modern  times,  are  political  ideals  constructed 
upon  the  model  of  Plato's  work,  and  reproducing  with  more  or 
less  fullness  its  principal  features  ;  in  some  his  supremacy  of  men 
of  science  and  learning,  in  nearly  all  his  views  of  family  life  and 
property  and  education.  But  Plato's  polity  is  essentially  distin- 
guished from  them  all  by  its  ruling  ethical  spirit,  by  its  great  end 
to  make  the  state  an  institution  of  virtue  as  well  as  intelligence, 
of  an  education  which  should  compass  the  whole  life  and  being 
of  its  citizens.  In  this  its  ruling  ethical  character  Plato's  "  Re- 
public "  is  not  unworthy  of  comparison  with  the  great  Christian 
ideal  embodied  by  Augustine  in  his  "  De  Civitate  Dei."  In 
dialectic  reasoning,  in  imaginative  power,  in  richness  and  finish 
of  literary  culture,  the  pagan  philosopher  far  surpasses  the  Chris- 
tian father ;  in  their  relations  to  their  times,  and  in  their  high 
spiritual  aims  and  motives  as  writers,  they  have  much  in  com- 
mon ;  while  in  Augustine  there  is  that  superior  elevation  of  con- 
ception, a  loftiness  of  prophetic  vision,  which  he  had  reached  in 
passing  from  the  domain  of  Greek  speculation  to  the  realm  of 
revealed  truth,  from  the  school  of  Plato  to  the  school  of  Christ. 
Amid  the  decaying  fortunes  of  the  Greek  states,  Plato  reared 
in  imagination  a  commonwealth  of  finer  and  enduring  quality, 
where  ignorance  should  be  chased  away  by  the  light  of  know- 
ledge, and  all  the  strife  of  passion  and  moral  evil  be  hushed  and 
subdued  to  the  peace  and  harmony  of  reason  and  virtue.  In  that 
commonwealth,  as  it  rises  into  being  at  the  touch  of  his  creative 


PLATO'S  REPUBLIC.  295 

power,  there  shines  the  glad,  bright,  happy  life  of  the  olden  Greek 
times ;  but  all  around  and  far  beyond  it  there  seems  to  be  loom- 
ing up  to  alluring  view  another  and  future  life  of  endless  and  per- 
fect being.  So  was  it,  but  now  in  the  clear  vision  of  Christian 
faith,  with  Augustine.  He  had  just  felt  the  shock  of  that  great 
event,  the  capture  and  destruction  of  Rome.  As  he  dwelt  upon 
the  fall  of  that  city  which  had  enthralled  the  world,  and  saw  the 
crumbling  and  dissolution  of  the  vast  Roman  empire,  and  beheld 
the  instability  of  all  earthly  governments,  he  turned  away  from 
the  sight  to  gaze  upon  that  heavenly  kingdom  which  had  been 
established  on  earth,  and  was  destined  to  be  a  universal  and  last- 
ing dominion.  And  so  he  set  himself  to  the  sublime  task  of  con- 
templating and  unfolding  the  progress  and  destiny  of  the  true 
theocracy,  —  that  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose  builder  and 
maker  is  God. 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

WRITTEN   FOB   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,   JANUARY    16,  1874. 

HORACE  in  his  famous  journey  to  Brundusium  has  made  us 
familiar  with  those  aspects  of  traveling  which  the  poet  was  fond 
of  taking  in  his  writings,  and  which  are  very  characteristic  of 
his  good  sense,  his  happy  content  of  mind.  The  most  distant 
journey  he  ever  made  was  to  Athens,  and  that  was  in  his  youth 
and  for  study  and  culture ;  but  in  all  his  after  life  he  was  no 
traveler;  he  was  fond,  indeed,  of  rambling  among  his  Sabine 
hills  and  valleys,  and  sometimes  went  to  the  seashore  or  into 
the  interior  to  recruit  his  health,  but  for  the  most  part  he  was 
reluctant  to  get  away  from  home  and  country,  and  never  tired 
of  deploring  the  unhappy  lot  of  some  of  his  friends  who  were 
always  roaming  abroad  in  quest  of  happiness,  forgetting  that 
without  wisdom  and  equanimity  all  they  who  ran  across  the  seas 
changed  only  their  skies  and  not  their  mind.  I  have  been  fre- 
quently drawn  by  a  reading  of  these  Horatian  passages  to  some 
inquiries  into  the  general  subject,  and  I  propose  to  give  you  this 
evening,  as  a  contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  ancient  Roman  life, 
such  notices  and  reflections  as  I  have  gathered  in  prosecuting 
these  inquiries.  Let  me  ask  you  to  observe  with  me  (1)  how  far 
traveling  entered  into  the  life  and  the  culture  of  the  ancient  Ro- 
mans, (2)  what  facilities  they  had  for  it,  (3)  what  were  the  dif- 
ferent classes  of  travelers  among  them,  (4)  what  countries  they 
chiefly  visited,  and  (5)  what  were  the  controlling  motives  under 
which  they  pursued  their  travels. 

We  are  greatly  in  error  if  we  infer  from  the  immensely  im- 
proved conditions  for  locomotion  and  intercourse  with  the  world 
peculiar  to  our  times  and  country  that  traveling  was  an  infrequent 
and  exceptional  affair  in  ancient  Roman  life ;  on  the  contrary,  in 
the  Augustan  age  and  the  times  immediately  succeeding,  it  was 
the  habit,  well-nigh  the  passion,  of  the  Romans,  and  it  was  certainly 
quite  as  common  with  them  and  as  easy  of  accomplishment  in  the 
first  two  or  three  centuries  of  the  empire  as  for  our  people  in  this 
nineteenth  century  before  the  introduction  of  railroads  and  steam- 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS.         297 

ships.  The  peace  which  came  in  with  the  imperial  rule,  and 
rested  even  as  a  gracious  calm  after  a  storm  upon  the  whole 
world  so  long  rent  and  torn  by  war  and  battle,  brought  among  its 
many  blessings  the  amplest  security  to  every  Roman  citizen  of 
gratifying  to  the  full  his  eager  curiosity  to  see  all  parts  of  the 
great  empire  which  in  some  sense  he  could  call  his  own,  and  even 
of  penetrating  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  earth.  All  men 
sympathized  with  Virgil's  shepherd  in  his  grateful  praise  of  him 
who  even  as  a  god  had  given  them  this  peace  —  "  Deus  nobis 
hcec  otia  fecit"  and  with  the  prayer,  too,  of  the  Horatian  muse, 
that  the  day  might  be  far  distant  when  his  peaceful  rule  should 
end.  All  might  go  whither  they  would  even  as  from  one  home  to 
another,  carrying  their  property  with  them ;  no  more  were  they 
disturbed  by  sound  of  arms,  by  fear  of  robbers  on  land,  or  of 
pirates  on  sea.  The  majesty  of  Roman  dominion  had  impressed 
a  friendly  unity  upon  the  entire  globe,  and  the  old  Homeric  fancy 
of  "  the  earth  common  to  all "  had  passed  into  a  reality. 

To  this  general  consideration  of  security  may  be  added,  as 
another  favorable  condition  for  travel,  the  admirable  widely  ex- 
tended system  of  military  roads  which  belonged  to  this  period 
of  Roman  history.  This  system,  which  had  its  noble  beginning 
in  the  Appian  Way  (Regina  Viarum),  and  which,  keeping  pace 
with  Rome's  progress  of  conquest  and  dominion,  had  already  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  republic  united  with  the  capital  all  parts 
of  Italy,  was  now  extended  by  Augustus  and  his  successors  over 
all  the  foreign  provinces,  and  reached  the  utmost  boundaries  of 
the  empire.  The  golden  milestone  set  up  by  Augustus  in  the 
Forum,  a  striking  image  of  the  centralization  of  Rome,  was  the 
central  point  of  a  vast  network  of  roads  which  kept  the  emperor's 
palace  and  his  departments  of  state  in  direct  lines  of  communication 
with  all  the  provinces  and  subjects  of  his  world-wide  dominion. 
Originally  military  roads,  which  had  borne  the  weight  of  war  in 
the  tramp  of  marching  legions,  they  now  became  grand  highways 
of  peace,  along  which  troops  of  citizens  securely  wended  their 
quiet  way,  bent  on  their  various  errands  of  public  or  private 
business. 

There  existed,  too,  all  needful  facilities  in  vehicles,  inns,  and 
other  appliances,  for  traveling  on  all  these  roads  with  convenience 
and  even  with  speed.  Travelers  of  simple  tastes  and  robust 
health  made  shorter  journeys  on  foot;  and  not  infrequently  do 
we  have  pictures  of  vigorous  Romans,  their  toga  girt  high,  their 


298  ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

inconsiderable  impedimenta  at  their  back,  striding  along  on  some 
Latin  road.  Others  went  on  horseback  or  on  the  back  of  a  mule, 
like  Horace,  who,  as  he  tells  us,  went  on  his  cropped  mule  even 
as  far  as  Tarentum,  his  cloak  bag  galling  the  loins  of  the  beast 
and  the  rider  his  ribs.  And  vehicles  there  were  of  all  sorts 
and  sizes,  government  post-chaises,  passenger-coaches,  like  the 
Italian  vetture,  or  the  statelier  equipages  of  private  citizens. 
Suetonius  informs  us,  in  his  life  of  Augustus,  that  the  emperor 
established  on  all  the  great  roads  an  amply  appointed  posting- 
system  for  the  purpose  of  securing  an  easy  and  rapid  communication 
with  all  the  provinces.  At  the  distances  of  a  day's  journey  post- 
houses  were  erected,  furnished  with  accommodations  for  couriers 
and  travelers,  and  with  buildings  for  horses  and  mules.  Between 
every  two  of  these  houses  were  placed  smaller  posts,  each  intended 
only  to  furnish  relays  and  having  forty  horses.  The  size  and 
capacity  of  the  coaches,  and  the  number  of  horses  for  each  and 
the  number  of  persons  to  be  carried,  were  all  fixed  by  law ;  four- 
wheeled  coaches  carrying  six  hundredweight  and  furnished  with 
ten  horses  in  winter  and  eight  in  summer,  and  two-wheeled  coaches 
limited  to  two  hundredweight,  and  drawn  by  three  horses ;  the 
number  of  persons  in  any  coach  was  never  more  than  three.  But 
as  the  government  post  was  chiefly  used  only  by  those  who  were 
more  or  less  nearly  connected  with  the  public  service,  private 
citizens  embarked  their  capital  and  enterprise  in  stage  companies 
to  supply  the  wants  of  the  larger  traveling  public.  These  com- 
panies made  their  posting  arrangements  upon  the  model  of  the 
government  system,  and  forwarded  travelers  by  changes  of  coaches 
and  horses,  or,  like  the  Italian  vetturini,  accommodated  slower 
travelers  with  the  same  coach  and  team  for  a  long  journey.  In 
respect  to  the  average  speed  of  travel  secured  by  these  modes 
of  conveyance  we  have  sufficient  means  of  forming  a  sure  esti- 
mate. Gibbon  in  his  account  of  the  Roman  roads  says  that  it 
was  easy  to  travel  by  post  about  a  hundred  miles  a  day.  Making 
allowance  for  the  Roman  mile  being  shorter  than  the  English 
(480  feet,  5,280,  4,800),  we  find  this  statement  agrees  with  no- 
tices of  journeys  recorded  in  ancient  writers.  The  average  rate 
was  five  Roman  miles  an  hour.  One  might  travel  by  government 
post  from  Antioch  to  Constantinople,  a  distance  of  750  miles,  in 
not  quite  six  days.  Julius  Caesar  traveled  from  Rome  to  the 
Rhone,  a  distance  of  800  miles,  in  eight  days.  The  swiftest 
Roman  journey  on  record  was  made  by  Tiberius  when  he  was 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS.         299 

suddenly  summoned  to  Germany  by  intelligence  of  the  illness  of 
Drusus.  With  only  one  attendant,  and  with  many  relays  of 
horses,  he  made  200  miles  in  the  24  hours  (probably  horseback 
—  though  Pliny  says  by  carriage).  But  ordinary  travelers  who 
stopped  over  night  of  course  took  far  more  time  for  their  jour- 
neys. From  Rome  to  Brundusium,  a  distance  of  360  miles,  the 
journey  generally  took  ten  days ;  Horace  and  his  party  traveled 
very  leisurely,  and  spent  fourteen  on  the  way. 

The  higher  and  richer  classes  of  society  were  wont  to  travel  in 
their  own  carriages,  and  with  a  numerous  attendance  of  servants, 
and  with  all  appointments  which  their  wealth  and  luxury  provided. 
Suetonius  tells  us  that  Nero  traveled  with  no  less  than  a  thousand 
state  coaches,  the  shoes  of  his  horses  and  mules  made  of  silver, 
and  his  drivers  and  couriers  dressed  in  scarlet  liveries.  People  of 
rank  were  not  slow  to  follow  these  imperial  examples,  so  that  lux- 
ury in  traveling  became  general,  and  indeed  so  ruinous  was  the 
extravagance  that  not  infrequently,  as  in  modern  times,  men 
lived  abroad  like  millionaires,  and  in  the  last  stage  of  the  journey 
home  went  straight  into  bankruptcy.  The  equipages  compared 
favorably,  in  the  convenience,  elegance,  and  costliness  of  their 
appointments,  with  those  of  modern  times,  the  horses  caparisoned 
with  purple  and  embroidered  trappings,  the  carriages  of  the  best 
make  richly  furnished,  and  so  capacious  and  their  ample  spaces 
so  arranged  for  various  uses  of  reading,  writing,  and  sleeping,  that 
the  description  of  them  reminds  one  even  of  the  drawing-room  and 
sleeping  cars  on  our  rail  trains.  Suetonius  records  of  the  Emperor 
Claudius,  who  was  very  fond  of  games  of  chance  and  skill,  that 
he  had  his  backgammon  boards  set  fast  in  his  traveling  carriage, 
so  that  he  could  play  his  favorite  games  as  he  journeyed.  Public 
houses,  and  now  and  then  well-appointed  ones,  there  were  in  abun- 
dance, especially  in  great  commercial  towns,  or  at  the  watering- 
places.  The  Romans,  indeed,  like  the  Greeks,  were  fond  of  avail- 
ing themselves,  on  their  journeys,  of  the  hospitalities  of  their 
friends.  So  Julius  Csesar,  in  Milan,  stopped  with  his  friend  Vale- 
rius Leo ;  Verres,  when  traveling  in  Sicily,  with  Sthenius  at  Ther- 
mae. So  Horace  and  his  party  were  entertained  at  Formia3,  with 
lodgings  by  Murena,  and  with  table  by  Capito.  And  sacred  and 
piously  observed  as  was  the  rite  of  hospitality  with  the  Romans, 
as  with  the  Greeks  before  them,  yet  it  is  curious  to  find  the  shrewd 
piece  of  advice  by  Columella  when  treating  of  the  building  of  vil- 
las, "  Don't  put  your  villa  on  the  high  road,  lest  your  housekeeping 


300  ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

suffer  by  the  everlasting  turning-in  of  your  traveling  friends." 
But  where  such  convenient  stopping-places  were  wanting  the  Ro- 
man people  of  quality  had  to  put  up  at  the  public  house,  like  their 
poorer  countrymen,  and  content  themselves  with  its  indifferent 
accommodations.  Every  village  had  its  inn  and  its  publican,  and 
in  large  towns  the  traveler  had  his  choice  among  several  public 
houses.  It  was  the  custom,  too,  of  landed  proprietors  to  put  up 
an  inn  on  some  part  of  an  estate  which  lay  on  the  high  road,  and 
have  it  kept  by  one  of  their  freedmen  or  slaves.  Here  they  had  a 
ready  market  for  the  produce  of  their  estates,  and  especially  their 
wines,  and  often  added  largely  to  their  income  from  the  business 
of  the  inn.  The  stations  often  derived  their  names  from  these 
taverns,  as,  for  instance,  the  common  name  of  Tres  Tabernse,  also 
of  Ad  Medias,  Ad  Novas,  Ad  Veteres.  The  inns  had  also  their 
signs,  as  in  modern  times,  with  their  names  upon  them,  and  gayly 
painted  pictures  and  inscriptions  setting  forth  the  merits  of  the 
house.  Thus  we  find  the  names  of  the  Eagle,  the  Elephant,  the 
Dragon,  the  Great  Crane.  The  sign  of  a  much  frequented  house 
in  Gaul  read  as  follows :  "  Here  Mercury  promises  gain,  Apollo 
health,  Septumanus  lodgings  and  table.  Stranger,  look  to  it, 
where  you  stop.  Whoever  turns  in  here  will  never  regret  it." 
Yet  the  ordinary  inns,  like  most  of  those  now  found  in  Italy  and 
Greece,  were  far  from  inviting ;  they  were  crowded  with  the  com- 
mon people,  hostlers,  and  drivers,  were  full  of  noise,  smoke,  and 
vile  odors,  and,  as  at  this  day  everywhere  in  Greece  outside  of 
Athens,  the  indifferent  beds  and  bedding  swarmed  with  numerous 
varieties  of  foul  insects,  flying,  crawling,  and  leaping,  which  Pliny 
groups  all  under  the  euphemistic  name  of  the  "  summer  creatures 
of  inns,"  cauponum  cestiva  animalia.  The  regular  prices  even 
of  good  inns  were  not  high,  at  least  according  to  modern  reckon- 
ing. We  have  also  preserved  to  us  a  day's  hotel  bill  from  those 
times.  On  a  bas-relief  found  at  2Esernia,  a  traveler  while  hold- 
ing his  mule  by  the  rein  is  settling  his  bill  with  the  landlord,  and 
the  conversation  is  given  thus :  "  Landlord.  You  have  had  with 
a  pint  of  wine,  bread  one  as,  vegetables  two  ases,  three  ases  (an 
as  =  1^  cents,  4.5).  Traveler.  All  right.  Landlord.  A  girl,  at- 
tendance (puellam),  8  ases  (12  cents).  Traveler.  That 's  all 
right,  too.  Landlord.  Hay  for  the  mule,  two  ases  (3  cents). 
Traveler.  This  mule  will  ruin  me  yet."  The  whole  reckoning 
thus  was  about  20  cents.  Polybius  sets  the  daily  reckoning  at 
only  half  an  as.  We  may  thus  see  that  the  two  pence,  or  two 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS.         301 

denarii  (32  cents),  given  to  the  host  by  the  Good  Samaritan  in 
Scripture  were  a  liberal  allowance,  and  were  meant  to  cover  also 
the  expenses  of  medical  attendance.  In  general,  as  we  may  infer 
sufficiently  from  Horace's  testimony,  the  innkeepers  were  on  all 
accounts  in  ill  repute.  Even  as  now,  with  the  same  class  in  Italy, 
they  were  given  to  all  kinds  of  petty  cheating,  such  as  giving  short 
measure  in  the  provender  for  the  horses,  and  indeed  in  giving 
none  at  all,  and  especially  in  adulterating  the  wines  ordered  by 
their  guests.  I  may  mention  in  passing,  as  a  curious  little  illustra- 
tion in  comparative  philology,  that  the  Greek  verb  /caTn/Aewo,  which 
means  first  to  keep  a  crib  or  a  manger,  comes  to  mean  both  in 
classic  and  New  Testament  Greek  to  adulterate,  to  cheat,  in  the 
same  way  as  our  verb  crib  has  come  to  have  the  like  bad  sense,  and 
even  to  cheating  in  the  use  of  classic  words,  from  the  same  word 
used  as  a  noun. 

The  ancient  travelers  also  suffered  no  less  than  the  modern 
from  the  frauds  and  petty  annoyances  of  tax-gatherers,  or  the 
publicans,  who  were  the  custom-house  officers  of  the  Roman  gov- 
ernment. Cicero  mentions  in  his  times  the  complaints  of  the  citi- 
zens as  directed,  not  against  the  duties  themselves,  but  the  injuries 
which  they  suffered  from  the  deputies  in  their  collection ;  and  at 
a  later  period  Tacitus,  in  his  "Agricola,"  awards  praise  to  his 
father-in-law,  that  when  he  was  the  governor  of  Britain  he  abol- 
ished the  tricky  frauds  of  the  publicans,  which  were  felt  by  the 
provincialists  to  be  a  far  heavier  weight  to  carry  than  the  tribute 
itself.  Plutarch  says  in  one  of  his  Moralia,  "  We  quarrel  with  the 
collectors  of  duties,  not  when  they  examine  the  things  which  are 
opened  to  their  inspection,  but  when,  in  their  annoying  curiosity, 
in  searching  after  contraband  goods,  they  rudely  rummage  over 
our  baggage ; "  he  adds,  however,  with  his  wonted  honesty,  "  yet 
the  law  allows  them  to  do  this,  and  if  they  fail  to  do  it,  they  make 
themselves  liable."  We  get  some  items  of  information  on  these 
matters  where  we  might  least  expect  it,  among  the  themes  set 
down  in  one  of  Quintilian's  "  Declamationes."  The  theme  is 
given  thus:  "All  things  except  those  needful  for  the  journey 
must  pay  the  quadragesima  (the  fortieth)  to  the  publican.  The 
publican  is  allowed  the  right  of  search  ;  and  whatever  is  dutiable 
and  has  not  been  declared  is  forfeit.  The  publican  may  not  search 
a  matron."  Next  to  this  last  theme  comes  the  following,  which 
shows  that  travelers  then,  also,  and  women,  too,  had  their  smug- 
gling tricks  as  well  as  now.  "  A  matron  makes  a  journey,  and  has 


302  ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

with  her  four  hundred  pearls ;  when  she  comes  to  the  publican, 
she  hides  them  in  her  bosom.  When  the  publican  demands  them, 
the  matron  tells  him  to  search ;  the  publican  declines  doing  this  ; 
he  puts  his  hand  on  the  pearls  stowed  away,  and  declares  them 
his  own."  Such  chance  information  we  owe  to  a  teacher  of  rhet- 
oric, as  he  gives  themes  to  the  Roman  boys  for  their  essays  and 
declamations. 

From  these  notices  of  the  security  and  various  facilities  of 
ancient  Roman  travel,  I  pass  to  speak  of  the  different  classes  of 
travelers  and  of  the  motives  and  interests  which  governed  them. 
In  general  it  is  obvious  that  alike  the  great  extent  and  the  central- 
ization of  the  Roman  Empire  brought  about  the  necessity  of  con- 
stant motion  in  traveling  for  a  large  part  of  its  inhabitants.  So 
numerous  and  complex  were  the  relations  of  life  existing  among 
the  members  of  so  vast  a  community,  that  there  were  perpetual 
streams  of  intercourse  pouring  in  and  out  of  the  gates  of  the 
capital,  and  flowing  to  and  from  all  the  regions  of  the  world. 
Ambassadors  and  couriers  of  the  governments,  senators  and  mag- 
istrates of  all  grades,  sent  on  various  public  missions,  and  private 
citizens  of  all  classes,  bent  on  different  errands  of  business  or 
pleasure,  were  passing  to  and  fro  between  Rome  and  the  provinces, 
or  in  the  provinces  between  different  places  and  the  seats  of  the 
provincial  governors.  One  writer  remarks  (Epict.  Diss.  III.  24, 
26),  "  Senators  cannot,  like  plants,  be  rooted  to  the  soil;  they  can 
give  but  little  heed  to  their  own  homes  and  private  affairs,  but 
must  ever  be  traveling  in  the  behalf  of  the  manifold  interests  of 
the  state ; "  and  another  mentions  that  the  people  of  Byzantium 
annually  sent  an  ambassador  with  a  large  retinue  to  Rome  to  greet 
the  emperor,  and  also  to  the  governor  of  the  province  of  Mcesia. 
So,  too,  we  find  in  illustration  of  the  widely  extended  relations 
of  private  and  professional  life,  that  Greek  scholars  lectured 
and  taught  in  Spain,  Grecian  artists  and  sculptors  painted  and 
wrought  in  Gaul,  and  goldsmiths  from  Asia  Minor  found  a  mar- 
ket for  their  wares  among  the  women  of  a  Roman  colony  in  Swit- 
zerland ;  so,  too,  Gauls  and  Germans  served  as  bodyguards  of 
Herod  at  Jerusalem,  and  in  turn  Jews  were  wandering  about  in 
all  the  provinces. 

But  if  we  endeavor  to  unfold  this  general  view  into  some  par- 
ticulars, we  can  easily  discover  among  the  Romans,  even  as  now 
among  ourselves,  three  classes  of  travelers,  according  as  they 
were  chiefly  influenced  by  considerations  of  business  or  amuse- 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS.         303 

ment,  or  of  information  and  general  culture.  Doubtless  these  dis- 
tinctions might  not  always  be  sharply  made  any  more  than  now, 
and  people  might  more  or  less  have  all  these  objects  in  view. 
Shrewd  men  of  business  often  would  manage  to  derive  some 
amusement  as  well  as  knowledge  out  of  their  journeys,  and  men  of 
culture  would  not  in  traveling  be  without  entertainment  or  busi- 
est occupation,  and  travelers  of  the  lighter  calibre  were  as  skill- 
ful then  as  now  in  making  a  most  absorbing  business  of  pleasure. 
Still  we  may  with  reason  as  well  as  convenience  discuss  our  sub- 
ject from  this  threefold  point  of  view.  I  might  occupy  the  re- 
mainder of  my  paper  with  accounts  of  the  journeys  and  voyages 
undertaken  by  Romans  and  Roman  subjects  in  the  interest  of 
trade  and  commerce.  The  traders  and  merchants  not  only  trav- 
ersed all  Italy  and  the  provinces  to  the  westward,  but  also  crossed 
the  seas,  and  made  their  way  eastward  through  Greece  and  Asia 
Minor  to  the  Euphrates,  and  to  the  south  and  southeast  to  Egypt, 
and  thence  by  the  Red  Sea  to  India,  and  to  China.  Horace,  in 
describing  his  vagus  mercator,  speaks  of  him  as  exchanging  his 
wares  from  the  setting  to  the  rising  sun,  and  running  in  his 
busy  haste  even  to  the  farthest  Indies.  Pliny  says  that  im- 
mense multitudes  sailed  in  pursuit  of  gain  on  all  waters,  and 
Juvenal  declares  that  the  ocean  is  so  filled  with  ships  that  there 
are  well-nigh  more  people  on  sea  than  on  land.  We  have  it 
recorded  on  an  inscription  that  one  Flavius,  a  Phrygian  trader, 
made  the  journey  to  Italy  twenty-seven  times ;  and  Horace  de- 
scribes his  merchant  as  revisiting  the  Atlantic  three  or  four  times 
a  year.  The  merchandise  of  the  East  had  in  earlier  times  reached 
Italy  by  northern  routes,  either  through  Media,  Armenia,  and  the 
eastern  and  southern  shores  of  the  Euxine,  or  else  by  the  Eu- 
phrates through  Syria  and  the  central  parts  of  Asia  Minor.1  But 
after  the  conquest  of  Egypt  the  Romans  shared  with  the  Greeks 
and  Egyptians  the  lucrative  trade  by  which  the  wares  of  Arabia 
and  India  were  brought  by  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Nile  to  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  This  trade  was  also  greatly  en- 
larged by  the  vigorous  policy  of  Augustus,  who  restored  to  regu- 
larity and  efficiency  the  disordered  condition  of  the  kingdom  of 
the  Ptolemies.  Commercial  intercourse  was  made  secure  ;  the 
transport  of  goods  made  easier ;  and  Alexandria  became  the  great 
commercial  mart  of  the  world.  In  the  time  of  the  Ptolemies  the 

1  Pliny  mentions  that  one  hundred  and  thirty  Roman  merchants  had  their 
places  of  trade  at  Dioscuria  (Iscaria)  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Black  Sea. 


304         ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

direct  intercourse  with  India  was  inconsiderable,  and  hardly 
twenty  vessels  a  year  ventured  out  from  the  Red  Sea  into  the 
ocean ;  but  in  Strabo's  time  six  hundred  and  twenty  made  the 
voyage  every  year.  The  entire  journey  by  land  and  sea  from 
Alexandria  to  India  and  back  generally  occupied  from  six  to 
seven  months.  The  muslins  and  silk  goods,  the  spices  and  the 
perfumes,  and  especially  the  pearls  and  precious  stones  which 
were  thus  imported  from  the  East  drained  Kome  annually  of  im- 
mense sums  of  money.  A  pound  of  nard  cost  in  Kome  about 
twenty  dollars,  and  a  pound  of  the  Indian  malobathrum  cost  sixty 
dollars.  Sometimes  single  pearls  sold  for  $200,000.  Pliny  men- 
tions an  instance  of  a  Roman  lady,  that  she  carried  upon  her  per- 
son in  diamonds  and  pearls  a  fortune  of  a  million  and  a  half  dol- 
lars. The  same  writer  declares  that  these  Arabian  and  Indian 
wares  carried  out  of  Rome  every  year  a  hundred  million  sesterces, 
circa  $3,750,000.  "  So  much,"  exclaims  Pliny,  "  do  our  luxuries 
and  our  women  cost  us  !  "  ("  tanto  nobis  constant  delicice  etfemi- 
nce  !  ")  N.  H.  12,  41.  But  it  belongs  less  to  my  plan  to  speak  of 
these  commercial  travelers  than  of  those  who  traveled  either  for 
amusement  or  for  information  and  culture. 

Immense  was  the  number  of  Roman  tourists  —  of  people  who 
roamed  abroad  from  mere  love  of  change  of  place  or  of  sight- 
seeing. Pliny  says  that  man  is  by  nature  fond  of  wandering  and 
of  seeing  new  things.  Many  such  a  roaming  Roman  was  as  care- 
less as  modern  tourists  of  the  sensible  advice  of  an  old  English 
traveler  (Peacham's  "  Compleat  Gentleman,"  1622)  "  ne  sis  pere- 
grinus  domi"  not  to  be  a  stranger  at  home,  a  stranger  to  things 
worth  seeing  and  knowing  in  one's  own  country.  "  Numerous," 
says  Pliny,  "  are  the  objects  of  interest  in  Rome  itself,  which  our 
ramblers  abroad  are  ignorant  of  even  by  hearsay,  which  they 
would  be  sure  to  see  with  their  own  eyes,  if  only  some  foreign 
land  possessed  them,  about  which  they  had  chanced  to  hear 
through  some  traveling  countryman."  In  their  shorter  excursions, 
such  tourists  visited  other  parts  of  Italy,  or  went  over  to  Sicily. 
Italy  had  many  a  summer  resort  for  these  rich  and  pleasure-loving 
travelers,  who  hasted  out  of  town  for  change  of  scene,  or  to  get 
rid  of  care  or  ennui.  Sometimes  they  went  to  the  seashore  and 
sometimes  to  the  interior,  as  Horace  in  one  passage  well  describes 
them :  "  If  our  rich  man  says, '  No  bay  outshines  the  pleasant  Baiae,' 
then  he  makes  for  the  Campanian  shore,  and  lake  and  sea  feel  the 
passion  of  the  hasting  lord ;  soon  a  vicious  fancy  seizes  him,  and 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS.         305 

straightway,  interpreting  that  as  a  good  auspice,  he  exclaims, '  To- 
morrow let  us  be  off  to  Teanum.'  "  Crowds  of  tourists  struck  into 
the  Appian  Way.  Here,  says  Lucretius,  drove  the  wealthy  Ro- 
man, weary  of  the  town  out  to  his  Alban  villa,  there  to  yawn 
and  fret  and  kill  time  for  a  while,  and  then  turn  back  to  Rome. 
Here  the  upstart  freedman  showed  off  his  dear-bought  ponies. 
Here,  too,  glittered  in  their  equipages  luxurious  women,  like  the 
Cynthia  of  Propertius,  ostensibly  going  out  to  Lavinium  to  wor- 
ship Juno,  and  herself  worshiped  on  the  way  by  her  attending 
lover.  And  here,  too,  as  Ovid  writes,  other  Roman  women  were 
making  their  annual  pilgrimage  to  the  festival  of  Diana  at  Aricia, 
there  to  fulfill  their  pious  vows,  garlands  in  their  hair,  and  torches 
in  their  hands,  not,  however,  without  the  attendance  of  gay  youths, 
whose  presence  was,  perhaps,  to  lead  to  yet  other  vows,  to  be  paid 
the  following  year.  But  the  stream  of  fashionable  travel  flowed 
on  through  Campania  to  the  Bay  of  Naples,  and  the  summer  re- 
sorts on  its  delightful  shores,  where  the  smiles  of  nature  and  the 
charms  of  art,  and  all  amplest  resources  of  refined  society,  were 
ready  to  minister  alike  to  healthful  recreation  and  to  ruinous  ex- 
travagance and  excess.  Most  conspicuous  and  famous  among  the 
many  attractive  places  which  lined  these  sparkling  shores  lay 
Baiae,  the  first  watering-place  of  the  ancient  world,  stretching  along 
by  the  side  of  a  level  beach,  and  yet  at  a  short  space  from  the 
waters  shut  in  by  a  circle  of  green  hills.  This  little  spot,  called 
by  Martial  "the  golden  shore  of  happy  Venus,"  was  amply  fur- 
nished with  magnificent  establishments  for  the  care  of  the  sick, 
and  yet  more  brilliant  ones  for  the  amusement  of  the  well,  — 
splendid  with  palatial  villas  of  emperor  and  nobles,  built,  some 
on  the  hills,  others  on  the  beach,  and  yet  others  on  the  water, 
their  owners,  as  Horace  says,  weary  of  the  land  and  greedy  of  the 
sea.  Here  went  on  in  the  Roman  season  a  round  of  luxurious 
life,  the  clear  skies  and  mild  air  and  blue  waters  all  alluring  to 
the  enjoyment  of  the  passing  hour.  During  the  day  gay -colored 
boats  and  princely  galleys  might  be  seen  everywhere  on  the  wa- 
ters of  the  bay,  with  merry  rose-garlanded  companies  gathering  to 
festive  banquets  either  on  board  or  on  the  beach,  the  shore  and 
the  sea  resounding  through  all  the  hours  with  music  and  song ; 
while  the  cool  evenings  and  the  starlight  nights  invited  to  new 
excursions  and  feasts,  and  then  later  the  sleep  of  the  jaded  guests 
was  disturbed  by  the  sounds  of  serenading  or  reveling  par- 
ties. The  voluptuous  character  of  the  life  at  Baiae  is  proverbial 


306        ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

among  ancient  writers.  Seneca  calls  it  a  harbor  of  vices.  Spend- 
thrifts, driven  out  of  Rome  by  insolvency,  here  wasted  in  riot- 
ous living  their  creditors'  gold ;  as  Juvenal  pithily  says,  they  ran 
from  the  Subura  to  Baiae  and  the  oysters.  Here,  of  course,  were 
found  gayest  and  most  attractive  women,  and,  as  the  poet  Mar- 
tial tartly  says,  many  a  guest  came  to  be  healed,  and  carried 
away  a  new  disease  of  the  heart,  declaring  as  he  went,  that  the 
salubrity  of  the  Baian  waters  was  not  up  to  their  fame.  The  per- 
ils of  Baiae  to  female  virtue  Martial  has  made  the  theme  of  his 
epigram  on  Laevina.  "  A  chaste  Laevina,  nowise  below  in  virtue 
the  ancient  Sabine  dames,  she  came  an  evil  day  to  Baiae's  baths, 
and  there,  alas !  while  dipping  oft  in  their  warm  springs,  sudden 
she  fell  into  the  flames  of  love,  and  quitting  for  gentle  youth  her 
too  stern  spouse,  even  she  who  came  as  true  as  erst  Penelope,  as 
false  as  Helen  went  away."  Well  might  Propertius  warn  his  Cyn- 
thia against  the  corrupt  shores  of  Baiae  —  shores,  he  declares,  "  all 
unfriendly  to  chaste  maidens." 

"  Ah  !  pereant  Baise  crimen  amores  aquae  !  " 
("Ah  !  perish  the  Baian  waters,  the  source  of  guilty  loves  ! ") 

But  the  Roman  tourists  who  traveled  from  curiosity  or  love  of 
new  and  gay  scenes  were  drawn  across  the  seas  to  visit  the  attrac- 
tive cities  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor.  Horace  enumerates  some 
of  these  in  one  of  his  odes  (1,  VII.  1)  :  — 

"  Some  may  favor'd  Rhodes  or  Mitylene  please, 

Or  Ephesus,  to  celebrate;  . 

Or  Corinth,  with  its  walls  between  two  seas, 

Or  Thebes  by  Bacchus  rendered  great, 
Or  Delphi  by  Apollo,  or  thy  vale 
Thessalian  Tempe." 

The  value  set  upon  a  sight  of  Corinth  is  sufficiently  shown  by 
the  proverbial  words  of  Horace  in  another  place,  "  Non  cuivis 
homini  contingit  adire  Corinthum  : "  Not  every  man  is  lucky 
enough  to  get  to  Corinth ;  very  like  the  Italian  word  about 
Naples,  —  Vedere  Napoli  e  mori :  See  Naples  and  die.  Cor- 
inth was  always,  and  now  more  than  ever,  a  city  full  of  strong 
attractions  for  many  travelers,  —  situation,  climate,  and  various 
scenery,  and,  especially  in  its  society  and  life,  so  gay,  rich,  and 
luxurious.  Ancient  and  modern  writers  vie  with  one  another  in 
celebrating  its  unique  position  between  the  ^Egean  and  Ionian 
seas,  and  the  extensive,  magnificent  view  from  its  citadel,  its 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS.         307 

springs  and  fountains,  its  public  games,  its  trade  and  commerce, 
and  all  its  busy  and  bustling  life,  as  at  once  the  gathering-place 
and  thoroughfare  of  the  travel  of  the  world  alike  for  the  East  and 
the  West.  For  Roman  travelers  it  had  new  attractions.  Through 
the  active  exertions  of  Julius  Caesar  and  succeeding  sovereigns,  a 
new  and  Roman  city  had  here  grown  up ;  it  was  a  Roman  colony, 
and  the  metropolis  of  a  Roman  province,  a  chief  element  in  the 
population  was  Roman,  and  it  gave  a  Roman  complexion  to  the 
prevailing  manners  of  the  people.  The  Romans  who  traveled  in 
Greece  seldom  failed  to  cross  the  .ZEgean  and  visit  the  cities  of 
Asia  Minor.  Most  attractive  stopping-places  there  were  on  the 
way,  as  the  voyage  lay  among  the  Isles  of  Greece,  which  tempted 
the  passing  traveler  to  linger  amid  their  "  spaces  of  calm  repose," 
and  have  a  nearer  view  of  spots  so  bright  with  memories  of  the 
past,  and  fairer  still  in  the  ever-present  charms  of  nature.  Les- 
bos especially  was  such  a  spot,  —  the  birthplace  of  Sappho  and 
Alcseus,  whose  capital,  Mitylene,  was  praised  by  Cicero  as  well 
as  Horace  for  its  delightful  situation,  the  beauty  of  its  buildings, 
its  fruitful  soil,  and  lovely  prospects  and  landscapes.  But  no 
island  in  these  waters  attracted  so  many  visitors  as  Rhodes,  the 
"  clara  JKhodos  "  of  Horace,  whose  metropolis  was  during  all  this 
period  the  chief  Greek  city  of  the  ^Egean.  The  moles  of  its  har- 
bors, in  which  rode  numerous  merchant  vessels,  stretched  far  out 
into  the  sea ;  and  above  rose  the  city,  in  the  midst  of  its  fragrant 
gardens  and  amphitheatre  of  hills,  encompassed  by  strong  walls, 
having  broad  and  regular  streets,  and  with  its  buildings  so  sym- 
metrical that  the  whole  city  is  described  as  looking  like  a  single 
house.  So  fair  was  the  climate  of  Rhodes,  and  so  serene  its  skies, 
that  it  was  a  proverb  that  the  sun  shone  bright  in  Rhodes  every 
day  in  the  year.  The  cities  of  Asia  Minor  which  were  most  fre- 
quented were  Ephesus  and  Smyrna.  Ephesus  was  the  capital  of 
the  province,  a  place  of  extensive  trade,  and  pronounced  by  Sen- 
eca one  of  the  most  beautifully  built  cities  of  the  world.  It  was, 
however,  far  surpassed  in  celebrity  and  beauty  by  Smyrna.  In 
its  position  and  appearance  it  resembled  Rhodes,  its  streets  and 
buildings  rising  above  its  harbors  in  the  form  of  an  amphitheatre, 
and  affording  magnificent  views  both  towards  the  sea  and  the 
surrounding  country.  The  city  was,  in  its  appointments  and 
resources,  fitted  alike  to  the  wants  of  Greek  and  Roman,  abound- 
ing in  gymnasia,  piazzas,  theatres,  and  temples,  in  baths  and 
pleasure  grounds,  and  affording  for  the  amusement  of  the  people 
numerous  games  and  holiday  shows  of  every  kind. 


308  ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

The  countries  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  yet  others  more  dis- 
tant, were  also  visited  by  many  who  traveled  in  the  interests  of 
learning,  or  for  purposes  of  study  and  culture.  Owing  to  the 
comparatively  few  and  slender  facilities  in  ancient  life  for  study 
by  books  and  libraries,  studious  persons  were  probably  more  apt 
than  in  modern  times  to  rely  upon  observation  and  reflection,  and 
to  increase  their  knowledge  by  the  sight  of  foreign  lands  and  the 
personal  inspection  of  their  manners  and  customs,  and  direct  in- 
tercourse with  their  distinguished  men.  Nothing  was  more  com- 
mon than  for  young  men  to  go  abroad,  as  a  means  of  education 
and  culture.  Every  province  of  importance  had  its  seat  of  learn- 
ing, to  which  aspiring  youth  were  wont  to  resort  as  students. 
Such  places  were  Massilia  in  Gaul,  Cremona  and  Mediolanum  in 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  Carthage  in  Africa,  Apollonia  in  Epirus.  In  Asia 
Tarsus  had  a  like  celebrity,  and  also  Antioch  in  Syria,  mentioned 
by  Cicero  in  his  "  Archias  "  as  affluent  in  learned  men  and  liberal 
studies.  Two  places,  however,  eclipsed  all  these,  and  vied  with 
one  another,  even  as  now  the  chief  universities  of  Germany,  in  the 
frequence  of  their  students  and  in  their  intellectual  influence. 
These  were  Alexandria  and  Athens,  to  whose  schools  young  men 
flocked  from  Rome  itself,  and  all  parts  of  the  empire.  Instances 
of  studious  young  men  visiting  Athens  and  traveling  in  Greece 
are  familiar  to  all  readers  of  the  classics,  such  as  Horace,  Bru- 
tus, both  Quintus  and  Marcus  Cicero,  and  also  the  son  of  Mar- 
cus. But  not  only  students,  professors  too,  and  teachers  of  all 
departments,  were  wont  to  make  extensive  professional  travels. 
Rhetoricians  and  sophists  travelled  to  and  fro  among  all  the  great 
cities  of  the  world ;  they  came  with  their  lectures  on  science  and 
letters,  just  as  Englishmen  come  now  to  us,  and  people  flocked  to 
see  and  hear  them,  and  paid  liberal  fees  for  the  lectures,  some- 
times, too,  as  in  modern  countries,  for  very  indifferent  perform- 
ances. Thus  Lucian  traveled  in  Gaul,  and  afterwards  in  Greece 
and  Ionia  and  Syria,  and  also  in  Egypt.  It  was  not  uncommon 
for  statues  to  be  erected  in  different  cities  in  honor  of  those  who 
had  thus  lectured  in  them ;  thus  Apuleius  boasts  that  he  had  won 
this  honor  in  many  places.  Still  more  numerous  and  extensive 
were  the  travels  of  artists  and  workers  in  the  arts.  They  jour- 
neyed from  place  to  place,  not  only  to  see  and  study  the  many 
works  of  art  which  were  to  be  found  in  the  different  provinces, 
but  also  to  supply  the  ever-growing  demand  for  such  works.  It 
was  the  custom,  too,  for  singers  and  for  athletes  of  all  kinds  to 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS.         309 

make  the  tour  of  the  provinces  in  Italy,  Greece,  and  Asia  Minor, 
and  to  give  concerts  and  shows  in  different  places,  where  they 
were  often  received  with  enthusiasm  and  presented  with  public 
crowns.  Cicero,  after  studying  in  Athens,  made  a  voyage  through 
the  JSgean,  stopping  at  the  islands  of  Cea,  Gyara,  Scyrus,  Delos, 
and  Rhodes,  and  thence  a  complete  tour  of  Asia  Minor,  and 
formed  a  personal  acquaintance  with  its  illustrious  orators  and 
teachers  of  rhetoric.  The  poets  Ovid  and  Propertius  also  made 
extensive  tours  in  Greece  and  Asia. 

The  emperor  Hadrian  was  a  great  traveler,  and  visited,  during 
his  reign,  every  province  in  the  empire,  and  not  merely  on  errands 
of  state,  but  to  gratify  his  love  of  knowledge,  and,  as  Suetonius 
says,  to  learn  and  know  by  personal  observation  whatever  he  had 
heard  and  read  about  any  regions  of  the  world.  But  perhaps  the 
most  interesting  of  all  Roman  travels  were  those  of  which  we  read 
in  Pliny  and  Tacitus  of  Germanicus,  the  nephew  of  the  emperor 
Tiberius,  and  brother  of  the  emperor  Claudius.  Brief  as  was  his 
life  and  career,  yet  his  is  by  far  the  most  conspicuous  and  inter- 
esting figure  in  the  history  of  his  time,  the  light  of  his  personal 
virtues,  and  cultivated  mind  and  manners,  and  noble  character, 
shining  out  brightly  from  the  dark  atmosphere  of  crime  and  tyr- 
anny which  envelopes  the  pages  of  Tacitus'  "  Annals."  Possessed 
of  studious  tastes  and  a  noble  curiosity,  he  improved  every  oppor- 
tunity to  visit  foreign  lands,  and  commune  in  sight  and  mind  with 
the  renowned  places  of  ancient  story,  or  of  letters  and  art.  When 
he  was  entering  upon  his  government  in  Achaia,  he  first  sailed 
over  to  the  coast  of  Epirus,  and  there  surveyed  the  field  of  Actium, 
which  had  a  double  interest  for  him  as  a  Roman  and  as  a  relative 
both  of  Augustus  and  Antony.  Thence  he  gladly  hastened  his 
steps  to  Greece,  which  like  all  thoughtful  Romans  he  honored  as 
the  land  from  which  all  higher  culture  had  come,  for  its  various 
fame,  also  for  its  antiquity ;  all  its  past  he  revered,  with  its  men 
and  its  deeds  and  its  events,  and  even  its  venerable  myths  and 
legends.  Every  rood  of  its  soil  which  he  trod  started  to  remem- 
brance some  storied  scene  of  war  or  peace,  and  wherever  he 
roamed  he  lived  over  again  all  his  earlier  studies  and  thoughts  on 
the  cherished  spots  whence  they  all  sprang.  With  fondest  delight, 
however,  he  visited  Athens,  where  he  was  welcomed  with  selectest 
honors,  and  where,  in  turn,  in  compliment  to  the  city,  he  went  al- 
ways attended  only  by  a  single  lictor.  Even  now,  with  its  politi- 
cal power  and  glory  gone  forever,  its  crowded  public  life  only  a 


310  ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

great  memory  of  the  past,  the  city  had  for  him  in  its  stillness  and 
desolation  unspeakable  charms ;  he  wandered  in  its  streets,  by  its 
hillsides  and  its  streams,  as  in  an  old  and  revisited  home,  gazing 
with  admiration  upon  the  temples,  the  porticoes,  the  Academy, 
the  Agora,  and  the  Parthenon,  with  their  superb  works  of  art,  to 
his  cultivated  eye  yet  green  in  their  ruin.  All  these  already  five 
centuries  old,  yet  seemed  fresh  and  new,  as  if  endowed  with  an 
ever-blooming  life  and  a  soul  incapable  of  age.  From  Athens 
our  classical  traveler  passed  to  the  plain  of  Marathon,  and  thence 
across  the  Euripus  to  Euboea,  and  from  Euboea  sailed  across  the 
^Egean  to  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  whence,  after  visiting  the  chief 
southern  and  western  cities,  he  proceeded  northward  to  Perinthus 
and  Byzantium,  and  from  there  into  the  Euxine,  full  of  desire,  as 
Tacitus  says,  to  see  and  know  all  places  ancient  and  celebrated  by 
fame.  On  his  return,  being  hindered  by  adverse  winds  from 
reaching  Samothrace,  he  visited  the  ancient  Ilium,  and  then  again, 
having  coasted  along  the  Asiatic  shores,  landed  at  Colophon. 
From  here  he  went  to  Claros,  consulted  the  oracle  of  Clarian 
Apollo,  where  the  priest,  with  the  wonted  oracular  style,  darkly 
foretold  his  premature  end.  In  the  following  year,  the  last  of 
his  life,  Germanicus  made  extended  journeys  in  Egypt.  Egypt, 
which  for  the  Greeks  as  well  as  the  Romans  was  a  land  peculiar 
above  all  others,  even  as  a  new  world,  was  much  visited  by  Roman 
travelers.  There  was  a  regular  line  of  vessels  running  to  Alex- 
andria from  the  Campanian  port  of  Puteoli.  In  this  port  itself 
the  traveler  had  a  foretaste  of  Eastern  and  Egyptian  life.  Here 
about  him  were  seen  people  in  Oriental  costume ;  he  heard  their 
various  languages,  he  saw  there  on  the  wharves  the  wares  and 
products  of  the  most  distant  lands.  In  the  harbor  the  Alexandrian 
ships  were  recognized  above  all  others ;  even  as  they  came  into 
port  they  were  easily  distinguished,  as  they  alone  had  the  right 
of  keeping  up  their  topsail  (siparium)  between  Capri  and  Cape 
Minerva.  These  ships  were  of  all  sizes,  from  the  fast  sailers,  or 
clippers,  to  the  large  ships  of  burden.  They  were  painted,  and 
carried  at  their  prow  a  figurehead  of  the  deity  from  which  they 
took  their  name.  Their  trade  was  a  lucrative  one,  and  sometimes 
brought  their  owners  an  income  of  twelve  Attic  talents,  about 
$12,000.  The  average  length  of  passage  from  Puteoli  to  Alexan- 
dria was  twelve  days ;  Conybeare,  in  his  work  on  St.  Paul,  makes 
it  nine  days,  but  this  is  mentioned  by  Pliny  as  the  shortest  passage 
on  record.  The  course  was  generally  from  Sicily  by  Malta,  Crete, 


ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS.        311 

and  Cyprus.  On  the  approach  to  the  dangerous  Egyptian  shore, 
land  was  signalled  at  night  by  the  celebrated  Pharos  light,  a  sure 
guide  to  the  mariner  at  a  distance  of  about  three  hundred  stadia 
(nearly  forty  miles),  and  even  by  day  the  bright  shining  of  the 
white  marble  above  the  blue  sea  betokened  the  nearness  of  Alex- 
andria. Germanicus,  however,  of  whose  travels  I  was  speaking, 
did  not  begin  his  journey  from  Italy,  as  he  was  already  in  the 
East  as  a  provincial  governor.  He  landed  on  the  African  shore 
at  Canopus,  a  populous  city,  whose  crowded  and  most  voluptuous 
life  had  no  attractions  for  a  traveler  of  his  spirit  and  aims.  Sail- 
ing up  the  Nile,  he  soon  passed  out  from  the  splendor  and  the 
noisy  din  of  Canopus  into  stillness  and  solitude,  all  at  once  trans- 
ported into  the  atmosphere  of  the  distant  past.  Having  visited 
Memphis  and  the  Pyramids,  Germanicus  sailed  up  yet  farther, 
bent  upon  seeing  the  famous  ancient  city  of  Thebes.  There,  doubt- 
less, in  gazing  upon  the  mighty  ruins  of  vanished  power  and  glory, 
the  young  Roman  prince  had  occasion  to  learn  a  lesson  for  himself 
and  his  own  nation ;  for  one  of  the  oldest  priests,  in  interpreting 
to  him  the  Egyptian  inscriptions,  told  him  of  a  Theban  empire 
that  once  was  no  less  great  and  powerful  than  the  existing  em- 
pire of  Rome.  The  king,  Rhamses,  had  had  under  his  command 
700,000  righting  men ;  he  had  conquered  not  only  Libya  and  Ethi- 
opia, but  also  Armenia  and  Syria,  and  the  countries  of  Asia  from 
Bithynia  to  Lycia,  and  had  exacted  from  these  peoples  revenues 
fully  equal  to  those  won  by  Parthian  or  by  Roman  power. 

As  we  read  the  records  of  these  travels,  and  those  of  other 
cultivated  Roman  travelers,  we  are  struck  with  the  prevailing  his- 
torical interest  with  which  they  were  pursued.  In  this  respect, 
indeed,  the  Roman  travelers  were  much  like  thoughtful  men  in  our 
own  times  who  visit  foreign  lands.  It  was  not  so  much  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  existing  nations,  or  other  institutions  or  ob- 
jects belonging  to  the  present,  which  occupied  their  minds ;  it  was 
rather  the  interest  that  belongs  to  the  past,  the  fascinating  in- 
fluence of  great  historic  memories,  and  the  effort  to  reproduce 
bygone  times  by  seeing  their  famous  places  and  yet  existing  mon- 
uments. Indeed,  the  liveliest  interest  was  felt  in  seeing  even  the 
smallest  remains  of  the  life  of  distant  heroic  times  made  re- 
nowned by  the  immortal  song  of  Homer.  In  Athens  and  Sparta, 
in  Aulis,  Argos,  and  Mycena3,  Romans  conscientiously  followed 
their  guides  as  they  traced  for  them  the  footsteps  and  the  storied 
lives  of  an  Ajax,  Telamon,  or  Ulysses,  or  even  of  mythical  Icarus. 


312  ROMAN  TRAVEL  AND  TRAVELERS. 

An  ancient  temple,  or  a  fountain  or  a  grove,  or  a  single  plane- 
tree  or  myrtle-tree,  thus  reproduced  a  whole  period  with  its  great 
names  and  events.  Hardly  a  step  was  taken,  in  a  land  rich  in  old 
traditions,  which  did  not  reecho  some  memorable  occurrence,  and 
not  a  stone  was  there  but  had  some  name  upon  it.  So  was  it  also 
with  places  ennobled  by  recollections  of  historic  times.  The 
graves  of  great  men  were  visited,  and  the  battlefields  and  camp 
grounds  of  great  armies  like  the  Persian.  "  We  looked,"  said 
Arrian  to  Hadrian,  —  "  we  looked  upon  the  Euxine  from  the  same 
spot  on  which  Xenophon  beheld  it."  With  special  satisfaction 
travelers  followed  in  the  steps  of  Alexander  the  Great  in  his  cam- 
paigns in  Greece  and  the  East.  Plutarch  speaks  of  an  old  oak 
on  the  Cephissus,  under  which  stood  Alexander's  tent  at  the  bat- 
tle of  Chaeronea.  The  tomb  of  the  great  conqueror  at  Alexandria 
was  always  religiously  visited,  especially  by  the  Roman  emperors 
themselves.  And  nearer  home,  in  Italy  and  the  western  provinces, 
the  Romans,  inspired  by  the  same  historical  interest,  were  wont  to 
seek  out  the  places  celebrated  in  the  earlier  and  the  later  times, 
as,  at  Laurentum,  the  camp  of  ^Eneas  ;  at  Liternum,  olive-trees 
planted  by  the  younger  Scipio ;  and,  just  as  now  with  modern 
travelers  in  Italy,  the  island  of  Capri,  where  Augustus  and  the 
infamous  Tiberius  passed  so  much  time ;  and  at  Tusculum  the 
villa  of  Cicero,  and  at  Tibur  the  house  of  Horace.  The  interest 
in  art  and  its  numerous  existing  works  was  another  influence 
which  either  occasioned  or  directed  the  foreign  travels  of  the 
Romans.  Cicero  enumerates  the  costly  works  of  art  in  Sicily 
of  which  Verres  had  robbed  the  temples,  or  the  houses  of  the 
provincialists ;  every  traveler,  he  says,  was  conducted  to  them  to 
gaze  upon  their  beauty.  So,  also,  Propertius  at  Athens,  though 
chiefly  occupied  with  his  study  of  Plato  and  Demosthenes,  failed 
not  to  study  its  great  works  in  bronze  and  marble.  In  Cicero's 
time,  men  went  to  Thespise  in  Boeotia  to  see  the  Amor  by  Praxi- 
teles ;  and  Pliny  says  that  for  a  sight  of  the  Venus  of  this  artist 
many  made  the  voyage  to  Cnidus.  Yet,  if  we  take  the  testimony 
of  Pliny  in  other  places,  the  appreciation  of  art  by  the  Romans 
was  somewhat  superficial  and  arbitrary,  and  chiefly  determined  by 
the  name  of  an  artist  and  the  fame  of  his  works.  Indeed,  one 
word  of  his  strikes  one  as  quite  applicable  to  many  a  modern 
traveler  in  countries  enriched  with  fine  creations  in  art.  He 
says :  "  As  soon  as  one  only  sees  a  celebrated  picture  or  statue, 
he  goes  on  his  way  quite  content ;  he  never  comes  back  to  get  a 


ROMAN  TRAVELS  AND  TRAVELERS.        313 

second  look."  The  historical  interest  prevailed  over  that  in  art, 
even  with  men  of  Cicero's  culture.  He  says  in  one  of  his  works : 
."  Places  in  which  there  are  traces  of  men  or  events  that  we  admire 
or  revere  make  upon  us  an  enduring  impression.  Even  my  favor- 
ite city  of  Athens  pleases  me  not  so  much  by  its  superb  buildings 
and  the  grand  works  of  its  artists  as  by  the  memories  of  its  great 
men,  —  where  they  lived,  where  they  sat,  where  they  wrote  and 
spoke,  and  where  their  sacred  ashes  now  repose."  (De  Legibus, 
ii.  2,  4.) 

Let  me  mention  one  more  source  of  interest  in  travel  from 
which  the  Romans  like  ourselves  derived  the  utmost  enjoyment, 
and  this  is  the  sight  of  nature  and  natural  scenery.  It  was  a  true 
Roman  as  well  as  human  word  said  by  Atticus,  "  In  all  which  has 
to  do  with  mental  quickening  and  refreshment,  and  real  inward 
joy,  nature  has  the  first  place  in  its  influence  over  us."  (Cicero, 
de  Legibus,  ii.  I.  2.)  It  has  been  often  remarked  of  the  feeling  for 
nature  among  the  ancients,  that  it  had  in  it  a  more  marked  reli- 
gious element  than  with  people  in  modern  life.  In  the  midst  of 
the  beautiful  and  the  grand  in  natural  scenes,  in  mountain  and 
grove,  and  stream  and  ocean,  they  felt  themselves  in  more  direct 
communion  with  a  divine  power,  and  with  their  wonder  and  delight 
was  associated  more  closely  a  feeling  of  adoration.  This  kind  of 
religious  feeling  of  nature  frequently  finds  expression  in  ancient 
writers,  and  in  those,  too,  who  have  loved  the  country  at  home  as 
well  as  abroad.  On  this  account,  places  rich  in  natural  beauty  or 
sublimity  were  sought  out,  not  alone  for  the  esthetic  delight  they 
yielded,  but  also  for  the  worship  of  the  deities  to  which  tradition 
and  long  usage  had  consecrated  them.  But  still  the  immediate 
feeling  for  nature  and  natural  scenery  was,  with  Roman  writers 
and  travelers,  a  far  more  powerful  source  of  interest  than  the  feel- 
ing for  art.  It  finds  ample  expression  in  words  in  all  their  poets, 
and  a  still  surer  expression  in  their  love  for  the  country  and  a 
country  life.  Varro  says,  in  words  which  remind  us  of  Cowper : 
"  The  country  divine  nature  has  given  us,  the  town  man's  art  has 
built "  (De  Re  Rustica,  iii.  1,  4) ;  far  rather,  he  adds,  would  he 
see  the  fruiteries  at  Scrofa's  villa  than  the  picture  gallery  of  Lu- 
cullus."  Lucretius  was  "  content  to  lie  on  the  soft  grass  by  a  trick- 
ling waterfall,  under  the  branches  of  a  lofty  tree,  when  the  sea- 
son smiled  and  the  meads  glowed  with  flowers,  while  others  were 
banqueters  to  the  sound  of  the  cithara  in  their  splendid  halls, 
which  glittered  with  gold."  And  Seneca:  "Who  that  has  known 


314  ROMAN  TRAVELS  AND  TRAVELERS. 


real  nature  can  delight  in  its  imitations?  I  can  scarcely  believe 
that  those  who  imitate  in  their  houses  forest,  river,  and  sea 
have  ever  seen  real  woods  or  wide,  green  fields  into  which  a  rush- 
ing river  pours,  or  through  which  quietly  flows  the  noiseless 
brook."  And  Horace,  with  whom  I  began  this  quite  too  extended 
paper,  let  me  end  with  him  by  quoting  from  his  praises  of  nature. 
There  in  the  forest  or  by  the  brookside  he  found  at  last  true 
delight.  There  the  winter  was  warm,  the  summer  was  cool,  his 
sleep  undisturbed.  Thence  he  writes  (Ep.  I.  10)  to  his  friend 
Aristius  in  the  city :  — 

"  You  keep  the  nest :   I  praise  the  rural  shade, 
The  moss-grown  rock,  clear  brook,  and  woodland  glade. 
In  short  I  live,  I  reign,  when  I  retire 
From  all  that  you  town-lovers  so  admire. 
And,  like  some  slave  from  priestly  service  fled, 
Cloyed  with  rich  cakes,  I  long  for  wholesome  bread." 


THE  POEM  OF  LUCRETIUS,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

WRITTEN   FOR   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,   JANUARY  29,  1875. 

To  every  one  who  has  read  Lucretius  and  has  come  to  feel  his 
power  as  a  writer,  it  must  seem  a  quite  peculiar  thing  that  so 
little  is  known  of  his  personal  history.  The  event  of  his  death 
in  the  year  55  B.  c.  we  learn  from  Donatus  in  his  life  of  Virgil ; 
and  it  is  there  mentioned  quite  incidentally,  as  having  occurred 
the  very  day  on  which  Virgil  at  the  age  of  fifteen  assumed  the  toga 
virilis  ("  evenitque  ut  eo  ipso  die  Lucretius  poeta  decederet "). 
His  age  at  his  death  we  learn  from  St.  Jerome  in  his  additions  to 
his  translation  of  Eusebius'  Chronicle ;  he  there  says  that  Lu- 
cretius died  in  his  forty-fourth  year  ;  this  combined  with  the  Vir- 
gilian  date  just  mentioned  puts  the  birth  of  Lucretius  in  the  year 
99  B.  c.  Jerome,  however,  adds  the  strange  statement,  that  Lu- 
cretius had  been  driven  mad  by  a  love  potion,  and  that  after 
having  composed  several  books  in  the  intervals  of  his  madness, 
he  finally  died  by  his  own  hand.  But  certain  it  is  that  no  ex- 
ternal evidence  exists  in  support  of  this  statement,  no  mention 
or  hint  of  it  by  any  writer  of  the  poet's  time  or  by  any  subse- 
quent writer  down  to  Jerome's  own  days  ;  it  rests  solely  on  his 
authority,  and  was  published  by  him  at  a  distance  of  more  than 
four  centuries  after  the  poet's  death.  It  has  been  supposed  by 
some  scholars  that  St.  Jerome  took  the  statement  from  Suetonius' 
lost  work,  "  De  Viris  Illustribus,"  but  there  is  no  evidence  for 
such  a  supposition.  Some  have  conjectured  that  the  story  may 
have  been  an  invention  of  some  enemy  of  the  Epicurean  who  was 
contemporary  with  the  poet ;  and  others  have  insinuated  that  it 
was  a  pious  fraud  on  the  part  of  the  Christian  saint,  as  such  a 
fate  may  have  seemed  to  Christians  of  Jerome's  time  a  fitting 
one  for  a  writer  associated  in  their  minds  only  with  impiety  and 
atheism.  If  we  are  indisposed  to  accept  this  story  on  external 
evidence,  we  shall  certainly  find  nothing  in  the  poem  itself  to 
make  us  more  friendly  to  it.  And  yet  a  brilliant  modern  critic, 
Mr.  De  Quincey,  —  whom  in  this  connection  we  quite  naturally 
remember  as  the  author  of  the  "  Confessions  of  an  Opium-Eater," 


316  LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

—  was  very  willing  to  accept  this  story ;  he  thought  he  discerned 
even  in  the  intense  intellectual  and  imaginative  action  of  the 
work  symptoms  of  a  morbid  tone  of  mind  in  the  writer;  the 
poet,  however,  he  admired,  but  as  the  first  of  poetic  demoniacs. 
But  one  can  far  easier  agree  with  another  English  critic,  Profes- 
sor Sellar,  that  so  remarkable  a  poem  could  never  have  been 
written  in  the  lucid  intervals  of  insanity;  but  rather  that  its 
"  power  of  sustained  feeling  and  consistency  is  the  sure  evidence 
of  a  sane  genius  and  a  strong  understanding."  But,  leaving  this 
point,  let  me  proceed  to  say  that  we  have  not  a  solitary  men- 
tion of  Lucretius'  life  which  conies  down  from  his  own  time  ;  and 
only  few  notices  of  his  poetry  from  contemporary  or  later  Latin 
writers.  It  seems  hard  to  account  for  such  silence  in  regard  to 
one  who  ranks  in  intellectual  power  with  the  most  eminent  Ro- 
mans of  his  age,  and  in  genius  as  a  poet  was  inferior  to  none  that 
his  country's  muse  can  boast.  We  should  suppose  that  a  man 
of  such  endowments  must  needs  have  been  always  a  conspicuous 
figure  in  Roman  society,  and  that  after  the  publication  of  his 
poem  and  after  his  death,  whatever  might  have  been  thought 
of  his  opinion,  all  Rome  would  have  known  and  acknowledged 
him  as  a  profound  thinker  and  a  great  poet.  Caesar,  who  was  his 
senior  by  only  one  year,  might  have  found  in  him  a  combatant 
fully  equal  in  an  encounter  of  wits  in  philosophy  to  any  he  was 
wont  to  find  in  the  conflicts  of  the  senate  or  of  the  field,  and 
Cicero,  also  his  contemporary,  if  he  ever  had  conversations  such 
as  he  wrote  in  his  "  De  Natura  Deorum,"  could  have  found  no  man 
in  Rome  more  to  his  mind  for  deep  and  brilliant  discussion  ;  and 
though  Lucretius  was  no  statesman  or  soldier  like  Caesar,  or  orator 
as  Cicero  was,  yet  he  has  left  a  monument  in  letters  not  inferior 
to  aught  that  was  produced  by  either  of  those  two  great  men  of 
whose  fame  all  the  literature  of  their  time  is  full.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  most  obvious  explanation  of  this  silence  about  the  poet,  that 
in  accordance  with  his  own  tastes  as  well  as  his  teachings  he 
probably  kept  wholly  aloof  from  the  great  Roman  world  of  his 
time,  and  dwelt  only  in  his  own  world  of  thought  and  study,  illus- 
trating by  example  the  precept  of  his  master  in  philosophy,  "  Pass 
through  your  life  unobserved."  We  may  easily  believe  that  in 
that  thronged  and  noisy  Roman  world  filled  with  the  strife  of 
tongues  and  the  rude  tumult  of  contending  parties  in  politics 
and  war,  the  contemplative  had  no  part  or  lot ;  he  was  not  of  it, 
not  in  it ;  but  rather,  as  he  has  it  himself  in  a  characteristic  pas- 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA.  317 

sage,  looking  down  upon  it  from  a  serene  height  of  philosophic 
thought,  content  that  he  was  exempt  from  all  share  in  its  passion- 
ate struggles  and  errors.  We  must  remember,  too,  that  other 
causes,  unfavorable  then  as  ever  since  to  the  poet's  fame,  lay  in 
his  subject  and  in  the  kind  of  poetry  in  which  he  wrote  ;  in  his 
abstruse  speculations,  which  though  illumined  by  the  light  of  his 
genius,  were  yet  uncongenial  to  the  Romans,  and  at  variance  in 
their  results  with  the  traditional  faiths  of  the  people,  as  well  as 
with  the  instinctive  and  most  cherished  convictions  of  mankind. 
How  alien  to  all  that  people  and  that  age  that  a  Roman  genius 
should  fashion  into  a  poem,  with  all  cunning  of  a  poet's  art,  the 
most  prosaic  and  most  mechanical  of  all  the  old  Grecian  specu- 
lative systems,  should  build  up  the  universe  out  of  the  material 
atoms  of  Democritus,  and  find  in  their  endless  clashings  of  motion 
the  principles  of  order  and  connection  which  ruled  not  only  nature 
but  all  human  life  ! 

But  with  this  silence,  however  explained,  about  the  personal 
history  of  Lucretius,  there  are  clear  and  deeply  marked  traces  in 
the  most  eminent  Latin  writers  of  the  profound  impression  made 
by  his  thought  and  his  poetic  expression  upon  the  mind  of  his 
own  and  of  the  Augustan  age.  Cicero  mentions  him  by  name 
only  in  a  single  passage  of  a  dozen  words  (and  that,  too,  of  a 
disputed  reading)  ;  in  this  he  accords  to  the  poem  many  flashes 
of  genius  and  much  art  besides  ;  but  there  are  many  passages, 
and  especially  in  his  First  Tusculan  Disputation  and  in  his  "  De 
Natura  Deorum,"  which  show  that  Cicero  had  carefully  studied 
Lucretius.  Indeed,  some  critics  believe,  on  the  authority  of  that 
notice  by  St.  Jerome  to  which  I  have  alluded,  that  Cicero  was 
the  first  editor  of  the  poem  ("  Libros,  quos  postea  emendavit  "). 
Ovid,  who  was  born  ten  years  after  the  death  of  Lucretius,  de- 
clares ("  Amorum,"  liber  1. 15,  22)  that  the  poem  will  perish  only 
on  that  day  which  will  bring  the  world  to  an  end.  Virgil  evidently 
alludes  to  Lucretius  in  that  place  in  the  "  Georgics  "  (II.  490) 
where  he  counts  happy  that  poet  who  could  discover  the  causes  of 
things,  and  put  under  feet  all  fear  of  inexorable  fate;  but,  as 
Aulus  Gellius  long  ago  said,  there  are  not  only  verses,  but  entire 
passages  of  Virgil,  in  which  he  has  studiously  imitated  Lucretius. 
Horace,  too,  though  he  does  not  mention  him  by  name,  yet  clearly 
reveals  in l  many  of  his  poems,  how  strongly  and  permanently  he 
had  been  impressed  by  the  Lucretian  diction  and  views  of  life. 

i  (E.  g. )  Odes,  1.26;   TV.  2;  IV.  7. 
Satires,  I.  1,  us;  I-  3,99-112;  I.  5,  101. 


318      LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

If  now  we  turn  to  modern  times,  we  find  that  this  poem  of  Lu- 
cretius has  ever  exerted  a  marked  and  continuous  influence  alike 
on  men  of  science  and  men  of  letters.  This  concurrence  of  men 
of  so  diverse  tastes  and  pursuits  in  the  professional  study  of  the 
same  writer  is  doubtless  owing  to  that  singular  union  in  Lucre- 
tius of  the  poetic  nature  with  the  impulse  to  speculative  inquiry 
which  has  made  him  so  preeminent  in  all  literature  as  a  philo- 
sophic poet.  On  the  one  side,  amplest  illustration  is  furnished 
us  in  the  sketch  of  scientific  opinion  drawn  by  Professor  Tyndall 
in  his  Belfast  Address.  It  is  curious  to  observe  in  that  address, 
and  yet  more  in  the  pages  of  Lange's  "  History  of  Materialism," 
of  which  it  is  in  large  part  a  skillfully  condensed  view,  how  the 
whole  structure  of  modern  physical  science  has  been  gradually 
built  up  on  that  ancient  atomic  theory  which  was  unfolded  by  the 
Roman  Lucretius.  Beginning  with  Giordano  Bruno  and  Gassendi, 
we  see  the  atomic  doctrine  adopted  and  employed  in  whole  or  in 
part  by  a  long  succession  of  writers  of  widely  differing  ethical 
and  religious  views,  such  as  Bacon,  Hobbes,  Locke,  Newton,  Boyle, 
Lamettrie,  and  Holbach,  but  with  additions  and  modifications, 
more  or  less  materialistic,  till  we  come  down  to  our  own  century 
and  our  own  days,  when  the  doctrine  seems  to  stand  as  firm  as 
ever  on  the  solid  atoms,  but  with  such  a  fundamental  change  in 
the  conception  of  matter  and  such  a  vast  accession  to  its  proper- 
ties, that  Mr.  Tyndall  now  discerns  in  it "  the  promise  and  potency 
of  every  form  and  quality  of  terrestrial  life."  It  were  easy  to 
trace  in  the  annals  of  literature  a  like  succession  of  eminent  clas- 
sical scholars  who  have  interpreted  the  text  and  language  of  Lu- 
cretius as  a  Latin  writer ;  and  of  poets  and  men  of  letters  who 
have  been  powerfully  attracted  by  his  genius.  At  the  revival  of 
letters,  the  Italian  scholars,  ardent  in  the  cultivation  of  all  the 
ancient  writers,  counted  Lucretius  second  only  to  Virgil  among  the 
Latin  poets.  Equally  was  he  admired  in  the  sixteenth  century  in 
Holland  and  France  by  such  scholars  as  Scaliger  and  Turnebus ; 
and  Lambinus,  the  most  illustrious  in  learning  and  taste  of  the 
Latin  scholars  who  then  studied  and  taught  in  Paris,  published 
an  edition  of  his  poem,  which  has  remained  till  now,  in  its  critical 
and  exegetical  value,  a  standard  work  on  Lucretian  literature.  In 
the  next  two  centuries  Lucretius  found  successive  annotators  and 
editors  in  Creech,  Bentley,  Havercamp,  and  Wakefield,  and  read- 
ers and  students  far  more  capable  of  appreciating  his  merits  in 
Milton,  Dryden,  and  Gray.  Finally,  in  the  present  century,  Lu- 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA.  319 

cretius  has  been  admired  by  poets  of  kindred  genius,  such  as 
Goethe  and  Wordsworth  and  Shelley ;  while  more  has  been  done 
by  classical  scholars  for  the  textual  and  literary  criticism  of  his 
poem  than  ever  before.  The  German  Lachmann,  who  had  already 
won  an  illustrious  name  in  philology  by  other  great  works,  pub- 
lished in  1850  his  "  Lucretius,"  which  made  a  new  era  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  poem,  and  especially  in  the  history  of  the  text, 
which  he  succeeded  in  establishing  upon  a  firm  basis ;  and  sixteen 
years  later  Mr.  Munro  followed,  in  England,  with  his  edition,  in 
which,  while  he  improved  in  some  respects  upon  Lachmann  in  his 
own  peculiar  province,  he  furnished  an  explanatory  commentary 
fully  equal  in  importance,  in  relation  to  its  period,  to  that  of  Lam- 
binus,  which  had  been  published  exactly  three  hundred  years 
before.  This  classical  edition  of  Mr.  Munro  is  indeed  a  classic 
in  itself ;  as  a  contribution  to  Latin  scholarship  it  is  equaled  by 
nothing  achieved  in  England  in  this  century ;  and  it  is  more  than 
this,  for  as  a  satisfactory  commentary  upon  the  thought  and  the 
style  of  Lucretius,  it  is  an  eminent  and  a  lasting  service  rendered 
both  to  science  and  to  letters. 

In  its  literary  form  this  work  is  a  didactic  poem,  de  rerum  na- 
tura,  or,  on  the  nature  of  things,  a  comprehensive  expression, 
which,  as  used  by  the  poet,  expresses  not  only  nature  itself,  or  the 
universe,  but  also  the  agency  which  the  writer  conceived  as  per- 
vading all  nature,  even  as  if  the  soul  of  the  world.  It  consists  of 
six  books,  composed  in  heroic  hexameters,  each  book  containing 
about  a  thousand  verses ;  and  it  is  dedicated  to  the  poet's  friend, 
C.  Memmius  Gemellus,  who  was  Roman  praetor  in  the  year  B.  c. 
58.  It  is  characteristic  of  Lucretius  that  he  never  tires  of  sing- 
ing the  praises  of  those  writers  to  whose  genial  influence  he  has 
felt  himself  most  indebted  as  a  thinker  or  as  a  poet,  thus  as  Hor- 
ace says  of  Lucilius,  intrusting  to  his  books  as  to  trusty  friends 
the  secrets  of  his  own  culture.  In  his  poetic  manner  he  is  fonder 
of  the  older  Roman  poets  than-  of  those  of  his  own  day,  and  Ennius 
most  of  all  he  lauds  for  his  "  wisdom  "  and  "  his  immortal  verses," 
"  and  as  destined  to  bright  renown  throughout  all  Italian  clans  of 
men."  Of  the  Greeks,  too,  he  is  drawn  most  to  the  older  and 
classic  writers,  whom  he  calls  "  the  chaste  Greeks,"  in  strong  con- 
trast with  the  "  hollow  Hellenists,"  a  title  with  which  he  brands 
the  later  Alexandrian  school.  Above  all  he  forms  himself  as  an 
affectionate  disciple  upon  the  model  of  Empedocles,  who  had  writ- 
ten on  the  same  theme  and  in  the  same  form,  finally  extolling  him 


320  LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

as  the  dearest  and  most  glorious  possession  of  the  Sicilian  isle,  so 
rich  in  all  good  things.  The  diction  of  Lucretius  is  quite  marked, 
as  of  the  pre- Augustan  time,  less  tempered  and  finished  by  art, 
something  in  it  even  of  the  antique,  but  always  noble,  vigorous, 
and  concise,  fashioned  and  even  born  with  the  thought,  and  some- 
times in  its  very  rudeness  carrying  with  it  the  charm  of  original 
force.  If  you  come  to  it  from  Virgil  or  Horace  you  will  miss 
their  grace  and  elegance  and  felicity  of  expression,  and  their  har- 
mony of  rhythm,  but  you  will  get  thought  and  conception  such  as 
they  seldom  reached,  and  also,  in  their  own  genuine  Latin,  fruit 
not  so  rich  or  fragrant,  but  yet  of  the  same  Roman  flavor,  rustic 
though  it  be,  and  of  the  same  generous  juice,  drawn  from  its  na- 
tive Roman  soil.  In  forming  for  himself  the  view  of  the  world 
which  makes  the  substance  of  his  poem,  Lucretius  seems  to  have 
been  a  diligent  student  of  most  of  the  great  masters  of  Grecian 
thought.  Even  to  Plato  he  was  drawn  by  an  affinity  of  nature, 
though  so  widely  parted  from  him  in  thought ;  and  some  passages 
show  plainly  enough  that  the  Platonic  manner  had  for  him,  too, 
its  fascinations.  You  may  feel  instantly  assured  of  this,  even  by 
a  single  passage,  where  the  verse  of  Lucretius  reproduces  a  concep- 
tion of  Plato  which  often  appears,  too,  in  modern  writers.  Lucre- 
tius in  speaking,  as  he  is  wont,  of  the  waxing  and  waning  of  indi- 
vidual life  in  men  and  nations,  while  life  itself  is  ever  passed  down 
through  the  generations,  has  these  words :  "  And  in  a  brief  space 
the  races  of  living  things  are  changed,  and  like  runners  in  a  race, 
they  hand  on  the  torch  of  life,"  —  a  turn  of  expression  evidently 
caught  from  a  place  in  Plato's  "  Laws,"  where  he,  in  speaking 
of  marriage,  describes  man  and  wife  leaving  father  and  mother, 
and  in  a  home  of  their  own  "  handing  on  the  torch  of  life  from 
one  generation  to  another." 

But  he  is  most  familiar  with  the  older  philosophical  writers, 
and  those  who  were  given  chiefly  to  physical  speculations,  as  An- 
axagoras  and  Heraclitus,  though  of  the  latter  he  is  the  pronounced 
antagonist.  And  of  these  it  is  Democritus  whom  he,  as  a  disciple, 
studied  and  followed,  speaking  of  him  always  with  profound  ven- 
eration, and  deriving  from  him,  as  has  been  already  said,  the  ulti- 
mate principles  of  his  philosophical  system.  But  it  was  Epicurus, 
in  his  adoption  of  the  Democritan  theory,  and  his  applications  of 
it  to  physics  and  ethics,  who  was  the  immediate  master  of  Lucre- 
tius. In  philosophy  Lucretius  is  an  Epicurean,  and,  with  all  the 
earnestness  of  a  Roman  nature,  a  Roman  Epicurean.  A  modern 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE   RERUM  NATURA.  321 

reader  can  hardly  understand  the  language  of  enthusiastic  admira- 
tion which  he  uses  in  speaking  of  Epicurus.  For  him  he  is  "  the 
glory  of  the  Greek  race,"  he  is  "  the  guide  of  human  life  out  of 
darkness  into  light ;  "  his  genius  "  has l  passed  the  flaming  bounds 
of  the  world  and  traversed  the  universe,  and  has  returned  as  a  con- 
queror, to  tell  men  of  the  origin  of  all  being."  Indeed,  "  he  must 
be  ranked,"  he  says,  "  as  a  god  who  alone  can  point  out  the  path 
of  truth  and  reason."  The  philosophy  which  Lucretius  derived 
from  these  writers,  and  expounded  in  verse,  must  first  of  all  have 
our  attention,  if  we  would  understand  and  appreciate  him  as  a 
writer.  Whatever  we  may  think  about  the  atomic  philosophy, 
and  however  false  or  absurd  may  be  its  principles,  it  was  very 
dear  to  Lucretius.  It  completely  satisfied  that  impulse  of  his  na- 
ture by  which  he  must  needs  search  out  for  himself  the  causes  of 
things  ;  in  this  philosophy  he  thought  he  found  his  search  crowned 
with  success ;  it  put  into  his  hands,  as  he  thought,  the  key  to  the 
universe,  by  which  he  could  unlock  and  disclose  all  its  secrets. 
And  yet  his  interest  in  it  was  not  a  speculative  one.  It  was  emi- 
nently practical.  He  zealously  used  it,  like  his  master  Epicurus, 
but  in  a  noble  spirit,  for  the  attainment  of  ethical  ends,  to  scatter 
by  its  light  the  darkness  of  human  ignorance,  and  to  rescue  man- 
kind from  all  superstitious  terrors,  and  especially  from  all  un- 
worthy fear  of  death  and  its  lifelong  bondage.  And  again,  this 
philosophy  used  for  these  ends  is  wedded  by  the  genius  of  Lucre- 
tius to  genuine  poetry ;  and  nature  and  human  life  and  history, 
the  origin  and  various  phenomena  of  which  are  set  forth  and  ex- 
plained by  philosophic  reason,  are  also  touched  and  quickened 
and  adorned  by  the  lively  conception  and  the  fine  feeling  of  the 
poet.  It  is  this  threefold  aspect  of  Lucretius  which  meets  us  at 
the  very  opening  of  this  poem,  and  which  is  ever  before  us,  as  we 
go  through  with  it  in  such  a  survey  as  I  now  propose  to  make ; 
and  it  is  also  this  threefold  view  by  which  we  linger  on  the  criti- 
cism which  naturally  follows  such  a  survey.  It  is  the  poet  and 
the  poet's  conception  of  the  world  that  rise  before  us,  as  in  the 
opening  lines  Lucretius  invokes  Venus  as  the  sole  mistress  of  na- 
ture and  symbol  of  her  native  force,  and  prays  her  to  give  an  ever 
living  charm  to  his  verse.  Then  as  a  philosopher  he  begs  his  friend 
Memmius  to  lend  him  ready  ear  and  a  keen  mind,  as  he  shall  dis- 
course to  him  of  the  supreme  system  of  heaven  and  the  gods,  and 
shall  open  up  the  first  beginnings  of  things. 

1  "  He  passed  the  flaming  bounds  of  space  and  time." 

GRAY'S  Progress  of  Poesy. 


322  LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

And  lest  his  friend  may  be  disturbed  on  the  side  of  religion  by 
apprehensions  of  error  and  sin  in  thus  entering  the  path  of  reason, 
he  assures  him  that  by  unfolding  to  him  the  true  causes  of  all 
phenomena  he  will  deliver  him  from  the  tyranny  of  religion  and 
the  terror-speaking  tales  of  its  seers.  Lucretius  now  glides  almost 
insensibly  into  his  unfolding  of  the  principles  of  the  atomic  phi- 
losophy. The  exposition  and  illustration  of  these  principles 
occupy  Books  I.  and  II.,  and  the  remaining  books  their  various 
applications  :  — 

III.  The  nature  of  the  soul,  and  especially  its  mortality,  with 
the  object  in  view  of  rescuing  men  from  all  fear  of  the  hereafter. 

IV.  The   nature   and  action  of  the  senses,  —  taking  them  up 
individually,  —  of  the  appetites,  and  of  the  passion  of  love. 

V.  In  this  he  endeavors  to  explain  the  origin  of  material  na- 
ture ;  then  of  life  on  the  earth  and  the  natural  history  of  human 
civilization. 

VI.  is  occupied  with  such  natural  phenomena  as  men  fear  and 
ascribe  to  divine  agency,  earthquakes,  etc.,  and  closes  with  a  de- 
scription of  the  Plague  at  Athens. 

He  first  lays  down  the  proposition  that  "  no  thing  is  ever  pro- 
duced from  nothing  by  divine  agency "  ("  Nullam  rent  e  nilo 
gigni  divinitus  unquam").  Here,  however,  he  is  not  intending  to 
reject  the  idea  of  creation  by  a  divine  fiat,  though  it  is  true  that  he 
did  not  admit  this  idea,  as  he  always  assumed  matter  to  be  un- 
created. In  making  this  proposition,  he  evidently  has  in  mind 
nature  as  already  existing ;  and  it  is  clear  from  all  his  illustra- 
tions that  he  meant  to  assert  that  all  things  are  produced  in 
orderly  sequence  by  well-defined  laws ;  in  short  to  assert,  quite  as 
in  modern  phrase,  the  reign  of  law  in  all  phenomena.  Only  he 
was  not  content,  as  Democritus  was,  simply  to  assert  that  "no 
thing  is  produced  by  nothing,"  but  in  accordance  with  the  nega- 
tive bent  of  his  science  he  must  needs  add  the  words  "  by  divine 
agency ; "  like  some  of  our  modern  thinkers,  he  considered  the 
idea  of  divine  agency  in  the  world  to  be  in  contradiction  to  the 
action  of  law.  This  idea,  too,  he  always  ascribed  to  the  ignorance 
of  men  combined  with  their  fears.  Indeed,  in  this  passage  he 
goes  on  immediately  to  say,  "  In  truth  all  mortals  are  seized  with 
fear  because  they  see  many  phenomena  take  place  in  earth  and 
the  heavens,  the  causes  of  which  they  cannot  understand,  and  so 
they  believe  them  to  take  place  by  divine  power."  The  second 
proposition  is  only  a  complement  of  the  first,  that  "  no  thing  is 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE   RERUM  NATURA.  323 

ever  reduced  to  nothing,"  but  "  that  every  thing  suffers  only  dis- 
solution into  its  first  bodies."  Here  he  means,  of  course,  to  as- 
sert what  is  now  a  familiar  truth  in  physics,  that  matter  is  inde- 
structible, and  that,  whatever  change  of  form  it  may  undergo,  its 
quantity  remains  constant.  But,  third,  there  is  void  as  well  as 
body  in  things  ;  else  there  could  be  no  motion,  or  birth  or  growth. 
Then,  in  the  fourth  place,  all  nature  is  made  of  body  and  void ; 
these  alone  have  existence,  no  third  can  we  apprehend  by  sense 
or  reason.  Deny  body,  and  you  take  away  the  foundation  of  all 
reasoning,  and  deny  void,  and  you  have  no  motion  possible.  The 
next  step,  the  ffth,  brings  us  into  the  very  centre  of  the  atomic 
philosophy.  "  Bodies  are  either  first-beginnings,  or  else  they  are 
made  by  a  union  of  first-beginnings."  It  is  these  first-beginnings 
of  things  (primordia  rerum)  which  are  the  Lucretian  atoms; 
primordia  rerum,  first-beginnings  of  things,  the  regular  Lucretian 
word  for  the  aro/xot,  or  atoms,  the  Greek  word  of  Democritus 
for  things  which  cannot  be  cut,  and  so  cannot  be  divided,  individ- 
ual things.  Lucretius  never  Latinizes  the  Greek  word,  but  in 
one  place  he  defines  his  first-beginnings  as  things  which  "  cannot 
by  cutting  be  cleft  in  two  "  ("  necfindi  in  bina  secando  ").  These 
first-beginnings,  or  atoms,  he  proceeds  to  say,  are,  it  is  true,  invis- 
ible, but  so  are  very  many  things  hidden  from  sight,  of  the  exis- 
tence of  which  we  have  no  doubt.  But  they  are  themselves  indi- 
visible, and  are  solid  and  indestructible.  Everything  else  in  the 
world,  however  strong  it  may  seem,  iron  or  brass  or  stone,  may  be 
destroyed ;  "  but  these  no  force  can  quench ;  they  are  sure  to  get 
the  victory  over  it  by  their  solid  body."  All  other  things  have 
void  in  them  ;  but  these  are  without  void,  and  so,  admitting  no  de- 
stroyer within  them,  as  moisture  or  cold  or  fire,  they  are  solid.  So 
they  are  single  and  everlasting,  "  strong,"  as  he  is  proud  of  calling 
them,  —  "  strong  in  their  everlasting  singleness  "  ("  ceterna  pol- 
lentia  simpticitate"*).  Enter  though  they  may  and  do  into  ever- 
changing,  ever  new  combinations,  "  stricken  through  ages  by  count- 
less blows,"  they  never  change  in  themselves,  are  never  worn  ;  they 
are  just  as  perfect,  just  as  new  and  fresh  to-day,  as  at  the  very 
beginning.  They  must  be  so,  Lucretius  insists,  else  there  could 
be  no  constancy  in  nature  ;  else,  in  the  perpetual  wear  and  tear  of 
the  world's  life,  they  might  in  the  end  come  to  nothing.  The  first- 
beginnings  are  also  described  as  infinite  in  number,  and  the  space 
in  which  they  move  to  be  infinite  in  extent ;  as  only  thus  can  we 
explain  the  origin  and  preservation  of  all  existing  things.  To 


824       LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

complete  his  conception  of  the  atoms,  Lucretius  assumes  in  them 
other  properties.  They  are  widely  different  in  form.  Some  are 
smaller  and  finer  than  others.  Thus  the  fire  of  lightning  is 
formed  of  smaller  forms,  and  so  it  gets  through  smaller  openings 
than  the  common  fire  which  is  born  of  wood.  Light,  too,  of  how 
much  smaller  atoms  is  it  made  than  horn,  and  so  it  can  so  easily 
pass  through  it.  So,  too,  atoms  are  smooth  or  rough,  round  or 
angular.  In  general,  things  which  are  agreeable  to  sense  are  made 
of  smooth  and  round  atoms,  and  those  which  are  offensive,  of 
hooked  and  jagged  ones,  so  that  they  tear  their  way  into  the  senses 
and  do  violence  to  the  body.  The  different  forms,  however,  are 
yet  limited  in  number,  though  the  individuals  of  each  form  are 
without  limit.  So  we  must  believe,  in  order  to  account  at  once 
for  the  variety  and  the  regularity  of  nature.  As  to  the  size  of  his 
atoms,  Lucretius  gives  us  no  definite  conception ;  perhaps  he  never 
formed  one.  He  insists  that  they  are  not  infinitely  small,  and  yet 
he  makes  them  tiny  indeed,  and  very  far  below  the  ken  of  human 
sight  or  other  sense.  Perhaps  he  would  have  accepted,  had  he 
known  them,  such  calculations  as  are  made  by  modern  physicists  ; 
one  of  whom,  Sir  William  Thomson,  tells  us  that  if  a  drop  of 
water  could  be  magnified  to  the  size  of  our  globe,  the  molecules 
comprising  it  would  seem  to  be  of  a  size  varying  from  that  of  shot 
to  that  of  billiard-balls ;  and  another,  Professor  Clerk-Maxwell, 
calculates  that  two  millions  of  these  atomies,  placed  along  in  a 
row,  would  occupy  as  much  space  as  y§jj^  of  an  inch.  Other 
properties  of  the  atoms,  such  as  color,  sound,  and  taste,  Lucretius 
describes  as  not  essential  to  them,  but  only  as  secondary  qualities, 
which  grow  out  of  the  modes  of  their  combinations;  they  be- 
long only  to  what  is  perishable,  and  so  cannot  inhere  in  the  origi- 
nal elements  of  things.  In  like  manner  he  attempts,  but  wholly 
fails,  to  explain  the  relation  of  life  and  sensation  to  the  atoms. 
By  his  construction  of  the  atoms  he  must  needs  deny  them  life 
and  sense,  for  if  they  had  these  they  would  be  themselves  liable 
to  death ;  but  he  contends  that  by  their  union  they  give  rise  to 
life  and  sense  in  organic  bodies.  Here,  however,  in  such  a  princi- 
ple of  organism  he  seems  unconsciously  to  be  admitting  the  exis- 
tence of  something  else  in  the  world  besides  atoms  and  void.  But 
certainly  in  these  days  of  modern  science  we  need  not  wonder 
that  an  ancient  philosopher  had  some  difficulty  in  accounting  for 
the  origin  of  life.  The  views  thus  contained  in  this  First  Book, 
Lucretius  considers  so  fundamental  in  his  whole  system,  that  he 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE   RERUM  NATURA.  325 

concludes  the  Book  with  these  words :  "  If  you  will  thoroughly 
come  to  know  these  things,  then  you  will  be  carried  on  with  very 
little  trouble  (and  will  be  able  of  yourself  to  understand  all  the 
rest).  For  one  thing  shall  grow  clear  after  another,  nor  shall 
blind  night  rob  you  of  the  road,  to  keep  you  from  seeing  to  the 
very  end  all  the  utmost  ways  of  nature  ;  on  this  wise  will  things 
ever  be  lighting  the  torch  for  other  things."  Lucretius  opens  his 
Second  Book  with  a  brilliant  encomium  upon  reason  as  the  sole 
guide  of  man  through  the  dark  mazes  of  life,  the  sole  deliverer  from 
all  carking  cares  and  fears,  and  shows  in  a  series  of  fine  pictures 
how  superior  it  is  in  possession  and  use  to  wealth  and  birth 
and  rank  and  power  and  all  the  other  worldly  prizes  that  men 
covet  and  toil  for.  From  such  a  serene  philosophic  and  poetic 
height  he  then  descends,  as  is  his  wont,  to  his  task  of  philosophic 
discussion,  and  proceeds  to  unfold  what  may  be  termed  the  kinet- 
ics of  the  atomic  theory,  or  the  motion  of  the  atoms,  which  he 
treats  as  "  the  only  ultimate  form  of  what  is  now  called  the  en- 
ergy of  the  universe."  With  a  spirited  Nunc  age,  —  a  favorite 
Lucretian  spur  of  expression,  by  which  the  poet  stirs  anew  at 
once  his  muse  and  the  perhaps  rather  languid  attention  of  his 
friend  Memmius,  —  he  promises  to  show  "  by  what  motion  the  be- 
getting bodies  of  matter  beget  different  things,  and  again  break 
them  up,  and  by  what  force  they  are  compelled  to  do  so,  and  what 
velocity  is  given  them  for  traveling  through  the  great  void,"  —  in 
short,  he  will  show  how  it  is  that  all  things  ever  wax  and  wane,  and 
yet  the  whole  remains  ever  the  same.  The  power  which  explains 
such  perpetual  motion  Lucretius  finds  partly  in  the  inherent  weight 
of  the  atoms,  and  partly  in  their  contact  and  clashing  with  one 
another ;  by  such  power  it  is  that  the  atoms  are  borne  with  incon- 
ceivable velocity  through  space.  Swifter  far  than  light,  these 
atomic  first-beginnings,  infinite  in  number,  are  ceaselessly  pouring 
down  from  infinite  space  above  to  infinite  space  below,  and  so  they 
have  been  ceaselessly  pouring  through  aeons  of  time,  and  will  ever- 
lastingly pour  through  seons  and  aeons  more.  It  is  this  conception 
of  eternally  falling  atoms  which,  as  Mr.  Tyndall  remarks,  created 
in  the  imagination  of  Kant  the  nebular  hypothesis  of  the  origin 
of  the  solar  system.  As  you  look  at  the  Lucretian  pictures  of 
this  conception  it  well-nigh  blinds  your  eyes  and  dazes  your  brain, 
—  this  everlasting  rain  of  primordial  atoms  falling  down  all 
around  you,  and  far  away  through  the  immeasurable  spaces  of  the 
universe.  But  Lucretius  found  a  serious  difficulty  in  the  working 


326      LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

of  his  conception,  for  which,  however,  he  devised  a  very  curious 
doctrine.  One  element  of  motion  he  had  in  the  weight  of  the 
atoms.  But  as  these  traveled  down  space  in  parallel  straight 
lines,  how  were  they  to  come  into  contact  and  by  their  friendly 
collisions  unite  into  forms  and  bodies  of  matter  ?  So  with  a  fresh 
spur  to  attention,  he  bids  his  friend  clearly  apprehend  this  point : 
"  The  atoms  at  quite  uncertain  points  of  space  and  at  quite  uncer- 
tain points  of  time  swerve  a  little  from  their  equal  poise ;  you 
just  and  only  just  can  call  it  a  change  of  inclination."  This  is 
the  doctrine  of  the  Exiguum  Clinamen  or  Minimum  Declination 
of  the  atoms  which  has  brought  down  upon  Lucretius'  head  a 
rain  of  ridicule  from  Cicero's  days  to  Bentley's,  and  from  Bent- 
ley's  to  our  own.  But  let  us  do  justice  to  our  Roman  poet-philo- 
sopher. The  doctrine  is  of  course  an  assumption,  but  who  ever 
heard  of  a  philosophy  from  the  time  of  Thales  down  which  was 
quite  without  some  pet  assumptions  ;  and  I  find  a  learned  scientific 
writer  of  our  day,  who  seems  to  be  quite  at  home  in  all  the  region 
of  Physics,  vindicating  the  scientific  value  of  Lucretius'  doctrine, 
and  pronouncing  it  to  be  a  simple  and  original  solution  of  the 
difficulty  ("British  Quarterly,"  October,  1875).  Lucretius  saw 
that  his  atoms  in  their  parallel  straight  movement  were  rela- 
tively motionless,  and  but  for  declination  could  not  change  their 
relative  position  or  come  into  collision.  The  minimum  swerve  set 
them  in  relative  motion,  and  as  the  atoms  were  infinite,  it  pro- 
duced innumerable  collisions ;  and  in  these  collisions  the  whole 
velocity  of  the  atoms  came  into  action,  and  thus  developed  an 
ample  source  of  power.  But  Lucretius  had  another  motive  for 
this  power  of  a  fitful  declination  in  his  atoms,  than  merely  to  get 
them  into  contact.  This,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  was  no  less 
than  to  find  a  basis  in  these  very  first-beginnings  of  things  for  the 
doctrine  of  free-will,  which  he  believed  in  most  religiously,  and 
which  he  maintained  in  opposition  to  the  inexorable  Necessity  of 
Democritus.  This  power,  he  says,  is  the  only  principle  which 
avails  to  break  the  decrees  of  Fate  ("  quod  fati  foedera  rumpat "). 
Hence  it  is  that  he  carefully  says  that  the  declination  takes  place 
at  "  quite  uncertain  times  and  places."  The  atoms  have  a  freedom 
of  action  in  the  premises  quite  analogous  to  the  action  of  free- 
will in  man  ;  and  with  Lucretius  it  is  the  cause  of  this  human 
free-will.  "  Else,"  he  asks,  "  else  how  have  we  men  and  all  liv- 
ing creatures  this  free  power,  whence,  I  say,  has  been  wrested 
from  the  fates  the  power  by  which  we  go  forward  whither  the  will 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE   RERUM  NATURA.  327 

leads  each,  and  likewise  change  the  direction  of  our  motions 
(declinamus  motus,  —  the  same  word  which  he  uses  of  the 
atoms),  and  at  no  certain  time  or  place,  but  when  and  where  the 
mind  itself  has  prompted  ?  "  "  When  some  outward  force  is  push- 
ing men  on,  there  is  something  in  our  breast  sufficient  to  resist 
it."  "  Wherefore  you  must  admit  that  in  the  first-beginnings,  too, 
there  must  be  a  third  cause  of  motions  in  addition  to  the  weights 
and  the  collisions,  .  .  .  and  that  the  mind  itself  does  not  suffer  an 
internal  necessity  in  its  action  is  caused  by  a  minute  swerving  of 
the  first-beginnings  "  ("  exiyuum  clinamen  principiorum").  Here 
we  have  a  defense  of  free-will  worthy  at  least  a  poetic  material- 
ist. Mr.  Tyndall,  in  remarking  upon  the  process  of  Lucretius  in 
bringing  a  kind  of  volition  into  the  region  of  physics,  asks  the 
question,  "  Was  the  instinct  utterly  at  fault  which  caused  Lucre- 
tius thus  to  swerve  from  his  own  principles?"  He  gives  no  an- 
swer to  his  question ;  but  it  would  seem  that  any  one  would  say 
that  Lucretius  was  unconsciously  yielding  to  the  human  instinct 
which  rejects  any  sheer  physical  hypothesis  for  the  explanation  of 
a  spiritual  truth.  How  could  he  in  touching  such  a  question  as 
that  of  will  have  missed  at  least  the  conjecture  that  there  must 
be  something  in  the  universe  besides  material  atoms  ? 

The  time  would  fail  me  to  follow  Lucretius  through  all  the 
applications  of  his  theory  in  the  remaining  books  of  his  poem. 
I  shall  confine  myself  to  those  which  are  contained  in  the  Third 
and  the  Fifth  Book.  In  the  Third  Book  he  gathers  up  all  the 
force  of  his  philosophy  and  his  poetry  for  the  explanation  of 
the  nature  of  the  soul,  and  for  the  refutation  of  the  doctrine 
of  its  immortality.  And  here  his  ethical  point  of  departure  is 
the  removal  of  the  fear  of  death,  which  he  thinks  can  be  destroyed 
only  by  the  true  knowledge  of  nature,  or,  as  would  be  said  in 
modern  times,  by  true  science.  I  will  endeavor  to  present  in 
brief  his  views  of  the  soul's  nature,  and  then  his  chief  arguments 
for  its  mortality. 

Lucretius  first  distinguishes  between  the  soul  or  the  vital  prin- 
ciple, which  he  calls  anima,  and  the  mind,  which  he  calls  animus 
or  mens.  Each  is  no  less  a  part  of  man,  and  no  more,  than  the 
foot  or  the  hand  or  the  eyes.  The  mind  and  the  soul,  however, 
are  in  close  union  and  make  a  single  nature ;  but  the  mind  as  the 
ruling  and  sovereign  principle  has  its  seat  in  the  heart,  while 
the  soul  (anima)  is  spread  throughout  the  body.  But  both  the 
mind  and  the  soul  are  bodily,  for  they  move  the  body,  and  they 


328      LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

cannot  do  this  without  touching  it,  and  there  can  be  no  touch 
toithout  body.  Now  to  explain  the  consistence  of  the  mind  and 
soul,  considered  as  one  nature,  —  it  consists,  like  everything  eke, 
of  atoms,  but  of  atoms  very  small  and  fine  and  round;  hence 
its  mobility,  as  nothing  else  moves  with  such  celerity,  nothing 
is  so  swift  as  thought.  How  fine  and  small  these  atoms  are 
may  be  shown  from  this,  that  when  the  soul  is  quite  gone 
from  the  body  not  a  tittle  of  its  weight  is  lost;  just  as  when 
the  aroma  of  wine  or  of  any  perfume  is  gone,  the  thing  itself 
is  not  a  whit  smaller  or  lighter  than  before.  Yet  this  one  na- 
ture, and  of  this  consistence,  is  not  to  be  conceived  of  as  single. 
It  is  in  the  first  place  threefold,  made  up  of  spirit  or  breath, 
heat,  and  air :  yet  these  all  together  cannot  explain  sensation ; 
so  a  fourth  substance  must  be  added,  nameless  to  be  sure,  a  kind 
of  quartessence,  something  yet  finer,  smaller,  smoother,  rounder ; 
this  is  the  source  of  all  sensation,  this  sends  all  sense-giving  mo- 
tions through  the  whole  body ;  this  is,  so  to  speak,  the  soul's  soul 
(animce  anima),  yet  it  is  to  the  soul  what  the  soul  is  to  the 
body,  and  is  supreme  over  both.  Finally  the  soul  or  mind  as 
thus  explained  is  held  together  by  the  body,  and  is  in  turn  the 
body's  guardian ;  the  one  cannot  be  torn  from  the  other  with- 
out destruction  to  both,  any  more  than  perfume  can  be  parted 
from  frankincense. 

From  such  views  as  these  of  the  soul's  nature,  the  transition 
is  easy  and  necessary  to  its  mortality.  The  poet  goes  on,  therefore, 
with  a  score  or  more  of  arguments,  skillfully  knit  together  by 
prceterea's  or  moreover' 's,  and  concluding  with  three  rapidly  follow- 
ing denique's  or  finally*  s.  These,  though  different,  yet  ultimately 
rest  alike  upon  the  premise  that  there  is  no  generic  difference  be- 
tween body  and  soul,  and  so  both  must  share  from  beginning  to  end 
the  same  destiny.  They  are,  in  short,  the  stock  arguments  of 
materialism,  which  have  so  often  reappeared  in  philosophy  and 
science  since  Lucretius'  time,  and  are  not  unfamiliar  to  these 
days  of  ours.  They  have  to  do  especially  with  the  view  now 
often  presented,  that  we  know  of  no  action  and  so  no  existence 
of  mind,  except  as  connected  with  action  and  existence  of  body, 
and  thus  when  the  body  passes  out  of  existence,  we  must  infer 
also  non-existence  of  mind.  Let  me  touch  briefly  the  chief  items 
of  this  materialistic  score.  First  then,  as  Lucretius  says,  it  has 
been  shown  that  the  soul  is  composed  of  the  smallest  atoms,  even 
smaller  than  those  of  mist  or  smoke ;  now  as  these  dissolve  and 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA.  329 

melt  into  air,  so  must  the  soul  for  a  still  stronger  reason  yet 
sooner  perish  and  melt  away  into  its  first-beginnings ;  how,  indeed, 
when  the  body  cannot  keep  the  soul,  could  the  air,  which  is 
much  rarer,  hold  it  together?  Moreover,  when  the  body  is  ill, 
the  mind  is  ill  too;  it  wanders  and  becomes  senseless;  reached 
then  as  it  is  by  disease  like  the  body,  it  is  liable,  too,  to  death 
like  the  body  ;  thus  in  drunkenness  the  mind  itself  shares  all 
the  disorder  of  the  body,  and  even  if  some  cause  yet  more  potent 
get  an  entrance  to  it,  it  may  perish  just  like  the  body.  So,  too, 
the  mind  may  be  healed  like  the  body;  and,  like  the  body,  it 
thus  also  gives  mortal  symptoms. 

Again,  as  it  has  been  shown  that  the  mind  is  in  the  same 
way  a  part  of  the  man  as  the  eye  or  the  ear  or  any  other  sense, 
and  as  we  know  that  these  do  not  exist  apart  from  the  body, 
but  decay  at  once,  so  we  must  believe  it  to  be  the  case  also  with 
the  mind. 

Again,  as  life  and  sense  are  in  the  whole  body,  if  some  sudden 
blow  cleave  the  body  in  twain,  then  the  soul  must  also  be  divided ; 
but  what  is  divided  cannot  be  immortal.  For  instance,  we  read 
how  in  war  the  chariots  armed  with  scythes  suddenly  lop  off 
the  limbs  of  soldiers,  as  the  arm  or  the  foot,  and  these  limbs 
lie  there  on  the  ground  quivering,  with  something  of  the  vital 
principle  left  in  them.  Even  the  head  when  cut  off  retains  for 
a  while  as  it  lies  011  the  ground  the  expression  of  life.  Now 
we  cannot  suppose  that  each  one  of  these  quivering  parts  had  an 
entire  soul.  If  so,  then  one  living  being  has  many  souls  in  his 
body ;  and  if  this  is  absurd,  then  the  soul  has  been  divided  with 
the  body,  and  both  are  equally  mortal. 

But  perhaps  the  gist  of  all  these  arguments  is  contained  in 
one  passage,  where  Lucretius  argues  that  so  far  as  our  observation 
and  experience  go,  the  soul  shares  all  the  destinies  of  the  body 
to  the  very  moment  of  death,  and  so  that,  by  analogy,  we  must 
suppose  that  it  then  perishes  with  the  body.  But  one  tires  of 
the  manifold  and  minute  details  with  which  Lucretius  argues  and 
illustrates  his  case.  Yet  the  continuous  illustration  is  ingenious, 
often  subtle  in  thought,  and  in  the  expression  very  beautiful  to 
read  and  gaze  upon,  though  all  so  drearily  chilling  and  even 
icy  cold.  As  you  read,  you  recall  Shakespeare's  words,  — 

"  Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not  where ; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction." 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  III.  Scene  1. 


330  LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

And  yon  recall,  too,  that  kindred  passage  in  Byron's  "  Giaour," 
and  especially  those  two  lines :  — 

"  So  coldly  sweet,  so  deadly  fair, 
We  start,  for  soul  is  wanting  there." 

And  as  to  the  arguing  itself,  it  is  all  conclusive,  if  only  you  admit 
the  premises.  But  of  course  it  is  the  premises  which  are  fatally 
faulty.  If  all  is  matter  to  begin  with,  then  all  is  matter  to  end 
with,  and  end  with  it,  indeed,  all  will.  But  the  poet  here  breaks 
down  utterly,  as  elsewhere  in  his  conception  of  the  relation  of 
matter  to  mind.  The  atoms  have  in  them,  even  by  the  Lucretian 
construction,  no  sensation  and  thought,  and  so  they  cannot  impart 
them  to  their  combinations  in  the  anima  and  the  animus.  And 
vain  is  it  to  refine  away  the  soul  into  the  finest  possible  atoms, 
and  yet  more  vain  to  postulate  a  nameless  quartessence  in  the 
soul,  and  call  it  the  soul  of  the  soul.  It  matters  not,  or  rather 
it  matters  quite  too  much,  for  all  is  matter  and  no  mind ;  and  as 
the  theory  fails  to  account  for  the  origin  of  mind,  so  there  is  no 
ground  to  believe  that  death  is  its  end.  Nay,  the  argument  from 
analogy,  of  which  Lucretius  is  so  fond,  brings  us  to  the  very  con- 
trary result,  as  Bishop  Butler  has  so  conclusively  shown  in  his 
chapter  on  the  "Future  Life."  That  shows,  as  he  expresses  it, 
"  the  high  probability  that  our  living  powers  will  continue  after 
death,  unless  there  be  some  ground  to  think  that  death  is  their 
destruction."  And  let  me  conclude  this  part  of  my  theme  by 
quoting  one  sentence  of  the  bishop  on  this  head,  which  in  thought 
and  in  language  is  in  his  most  characteristic  manner.  "  For  if 
it  would  be  in  a  manner  certain  that  we  should  survive  death,  pro- 
vided it  were  certain  that  death  would  not  be  our  destruction,  it 
must  be  highly  probable  we  shall  survive  it,  if  there  be  no  ground 
to  think  death  will  be  our  destruction."  Thus  we  may  put  in 
contrast  with  the  teachings  of  Lucretius  better  teachings  even 
from  the  natural  religion  which  was  accessible  to  him ;  while  for 
ourselves  we  may  rest  secure  in  the  faith  of  that  revealed  religion 
which  never  shed  its  light  upon  his  mind,  and  we  may  recall  here 
the  words  of  Him  who  revealed  it  to  us :  "  He  that  believeth  in 
me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live :  and  whosoever  liveth, 
and  believeth  in  me,  shall  never  die." 

We  come  now  to  Lucretius'  Fifth  Book,  which,  in  its  compre- 
hensive applications  of  the  atomic  theory,  makes  the  most  impor- 
tant part  of  the  whole  poem.  For  this  is  the  book  of  the  Lucre- 
tian Genesis  —  or,  to  use  the  now  current  word,  of  development 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA.  331 

or  evolution  of  the  world,  in  which  the  poet  unfolds  his  views  of 
the  formation  of  the  universe  and  all  that  is  in  it  out  of  the  first- 
beginnings  and  their  combinations.  In  a  series  of  preliminary 
illustrations  Lucretius  shows  that  the  world,  like  all  else  made 
of  atoms,  is  of  course  mortal ;  it  therefore  had  a  beginning,  as  it 
will  some  time  have  an  end.  This  previous  question  disposed  of, 
the  main  question  is  then  proposed  and  answered,  how  the  world 
came  into  being,  and  what  were  the  successive  stages  of  its  devel- 
opment. In  the  answer  which  he  gives,  he  will  first  of  all  have 
his  friend  Memmius  clear  his  mind  of  the  mistaken  view  that 
"  the  gods,  for  the  sake  of  man,  have  set  in  order  the  glorious 
nature  of  the  world."  What  could  induce  those  blessed  beings 
to  come  forth  from  their  remote  seats  of  sweet  and  lasting  repose, 
to  take  in  hand  such  a  work,  which  could  yield  them  no  possible 
advantage  from  men  ?  Indeed,  how  could  they  know  beforehand 
what  nature's  atoms  could  produce,  unless  nature  had  given  some 
models  for  forming  things  ?  Nay,  apart  from  our  knowledge  of 
atoms,  one  might  know  from  the  imperfections  of  the  world  in  its 
make  that  it  was  not  the  work  of  any  divine  artificer.  No  ;  this 
world  and  all  that  in  it  is  has  been  formed  by  nature  alone  out  of 
the  elemental  atoms ;  and  "  not  by  intelligent  design  did  these 
atoms  station  themselves  each  in  its  right  place  ;  but  after  trying 
unions  of  every  kind  by  their  motions  and  collisions  in  infinite 
time,  they  at  last  met  together  in  just  such  masses  as  became  the 
rudiments  of  great  things,  earth,  sea,  heavens,  and  the  races  of 
living  things."  In  these  words  we  have  the  chief  text  of  the  Lu- 
cretian  evolution,  and  it  occurs,  with  some  slight  verbal  changes, 
in  three  different  places  in  the  poem.  I  will  by  and  by  ask  you 
to  consider  the  principle  (or  rather  the  no-principle)  of  the  pro- 
cess of  evolution  ;  but  just  now,  as  we  go  through  with  the  book, 
let  us  see  how  the  poet  describes  the  successive  stages  of  the 
process  itself. 

In  the  beginning  all  was  chaos,  or,  as  Lucretius  says,  there  was 
"  a  strange  stormy  crisis  and  medley,"  because  of  the  wild,  battle- 
like  disorder  of  the  clashing  atoms  of  every  kind.  Gradually 
those  which  had  mutual  affinities  parted  off  from  the  rest,  and 
joined  with  one  another.  The  earthy  particles  massed  down  to  the 
centre ;  and  as  these  pressed  closer  together  they  forced  out  the 
lighter  ones,  which  were  to  make  sea  and  stars  and  sun  and  moon. 
The  fire-bearing  ether  broke  forth,  bearing  with  it  ample  stores 
of  fire  wherewith  to  light  up  the  firmament ;  this  ether,  so  light 


332  LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

and  expansive,  swept  round,  and,  widely  expanding,  "  fenced  all 
other  things  in  with  its  greedy  grasp."  Then  sun  and  moon 
formed  themselves  of  particles,  neither  heavy  enough  to  sink  to 
earth  nor  light  enough  to  mount  up  to  highest  heaven.  Then  the 
liquid  particles  were  pressed  out  from  the  earth,  and  made  up  the 
sea ;  and  at  last  earth,  ether,  air,  and  sea  were  all  left  unmixed, 
the  ether  highest  of  all,  the  empyrean,  the  air  below,  and  the 
earth  in  the  centre  supported  by  the  air,  even  as  our  body  by  the 
vital  principle.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  with  these  concep- 
tions of  the  Roman  poet  a  passage  of  Milton  where  the  Christian 
poet's  imagination  is  expanding  and  unfolding  the  conceptions  of 
the  biblical  Genesis. 

"  I  saw  when  at  his  word  the  formless  mass, 
This  world's  material  mould,  came  to  a  heap  ; 
Confusion  heard  his  voice,  and  wild  uproar 
Stood  ruled,  stood  vast  infinitude  confin'd  ; 
Till  at  his  second  bidding  darkness  fled, 
Light  shone,  and  order  from  disorder  sprung  ; 
Swift  to  their  several  quarters  hasted  then, 
The  cumbrous  elements,  earth,  flood,  air,  fire  ; 
And  this  ethereal  quintessence  of  heaven 
Flew  upward,  spirited  with  various  forms, 
That  rolled  orbicular,  and  turned  to  stars 
Numberless,  as  thou  seest,  and  how  they  move  ; 
Each  had  his  place  appointed,  each  his  course  ; 
The  rest  in  circuit  wall  this  universe."  1 

Having  discoursed  of  the  movements  of  sun  and  moon  and 
stars,  the  poet  at  length  descends,  and  tells  how  earth  in  its  in- 
fancy produced  from  herself  all  forms  of  vegetable  existence,  then 
all  animals  after  their  kind,  and  finally  man  with  all  his  progres- 
sive life.  It  is  easy  to  follow  the  poet,  as  in  highly  poetic  lan- 
guage he  tells  how  the  earth  put  forth  all  kinds  of  herbage,  how 
all  the  hills  and  plains  glittered  in  their  green  hues,  and  how  the 
trees,  all  emulous  of  each  other,  shot  up  into  the  air  "  with  full 
unbridled  powers."  But  though  we  have  been  taught  before  that 
all  living,  sentient  beings  came  forth  out  of  "  lifeless  and  senseless 
first-beginnings,"  yet  we  are  startled  at  the  extraordinary  devel- 
opments of  animal  and  of  human  life,  as  they  are  soon  described. 
The  earth,  just  now  fashioned  out  of  material  atoms,  suddenly, 

1  A  curious  fact  that  this  last  line  reads  like  a  translation  of  Lucretius  :  — 

"  Omnia  sic  avido  complexu  cetera  sepsit."  — v.  470. 
The  rest  of  the  universe  (the  ether)  shut  in  with  its  greedy  embrace. 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA.  333 

no  one  can  imagine  how,  becomes  a  vast  reservoir  of  throbbing, 
pulsing,  productive  life,  and  Mother  Earth,  as  she  is  in  truth  as  in 
name,  gives  birth  to  all  manner  of  living  things.  In  one  sense, 
it  is  true,  the  description  is  similar  to  Milton's,  when  he  essays 
to  enumerate  the  "  innumerous  living  creatures,  perfect  forms, 
limbed  and  full-grown,"  which  "  teemed  at  a  birth  from  out  the 
fertile  womb  of  earth  ; "  but  with  him  the  earth  is  obeying  the 
Supreme  Will,  "  when  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  soul 
living  in  her  kind,  cattle  and  creeping  things,  and  beasts  of  the 
earth,  each  in  their  kind."  Most  strangely  of  all,  however,  is 
told  by  Lucretius,  and  with  a  veracious  tone,  even  as  of  an  eye- 
witness, the  story  of  the  origin  of  human  life.  In  the  fields 
where  then  heat  and  moisture  abounded,  infants  of  human  kind 
would  grow  up  into  the  borders  of  light,  and  be  cradled  in  suitable 
spots  by  Mother  Earth,  who  also  would  feed  them  from  her  opened 
veins  with  a  liquid  very  like  to  milk.  All  other  environments 
were  congenial;  the  warmth  of  the  soil  would  furnish  raiment, 
the  grass  a  bed  of  down,  and  the  world  then  in  the  innocence  of 
youth  would  know  no  severe  colds,  nor  excessive  heats,  nor  violent 
gales.  The  infants  were  thus  tenderly  cared  for.  To  such  strange 
ideas  did  an  exclusive  faith  in  the  primordial  atoms  bring  a  great 
thinker  and  a  great  poet !  We  wonder,  perhaps  we  are  shocked, 
at  these  ideas,  and  this  may  be  natural  and  even  necessary  with 
the  better  knowledge  and  the  better  religion  of  our  times,  with 
our  theistic  Christian  beliefs  inwrought  from  childhood  into  the 
very  texture  of  our  being.  But  suppose  we  should  try  to  put  our- 
selves back  to  the  times  of  Lucretius  and  into  his  surroundings  of 
thought  and  belief,  when  science  was  in  its  infancy,  and  when  the 
national  religion,  polytheistic  at  its  best,  was  then  in  the  decrepi- 
tude of  age,  and  suppose,  too,  that  like  Lucretius  we  had  well- 
nigh  a  devout  faith  in  nature's  ever-fruitful,  productive  power, 
and  in  the  earth,  as  the  mother  of  all  living  things,  is  it  probable 
that  then  we  should  find  this  account  of  man's  origin  so  very  irra- 
tional and  irreligious  ?  We  must  remember  that  to  the  mind  of 
Lucretius  this  idea  of  Nature,  as  having  in  herself  a  prolific  source 
of  life  and  of  life-giving  power  adequate  to  the  production  of  all 
things,  was  just  as  familiar  through  all  annals  of  philosophy  from 
Thales  to  his  own  time  as  is  to  us  the  idea  of  the  creation  as  given 
us  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  and  repeated  or  implied  throughout  the 
whole  canon  of  Scripture.  So,  too,  among  the  Greek  and  Latin 
poets  nothing  is  more  common  than  the  expression  for  men  of 


834      LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

"  sons  of  earth,"  and  "  indigenous  to  the  soil,"  which  in  their 
earliest  sense  had  a  literal  signification.  In  one  respect,  indeed, 
we  may  say  that  Lucretius  is  in  accord  with  Scripture,  in  that  we 
are  taught  that  man  was  "  formed  of  the  dust  of  the  ground  ;  " 
but  in  all  else,  in  all  that  is  essential,  how  different  the  Scripture 
teaching  !  "  And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image,  after 
our  likeness."  "  And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of 
the  ground  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life  ;  and 
man  became  a  living  soul." 

It  is  in  reading  this  part  of  Lucretius'  poem  that  we  sometimes 
come  upon  the  mention  of  natural  phenomena  and  inferences  from 
which  are  put  forth  also  by  modern  and  living  naturalists,  and 
are  treated  as  the  outgrowth  of  modern  science.  Thus  it  is  that 
Lucretius  dwells  upon  eccentricities,  or  imperfections  in  nature, 
such  as  "  rudimental  organs,"  or  abnormal  forms  of  being.  Such 
views  are  quite  in  the  Lucretian  line  of  thought,  as  the  process 
he  is  describing  is  always  from  the  lower  to  the  higher,  the  less 
perfect  to  the  more  perfect.  Nature  is  at  her  earliest  now,  in 
the  first-beginnings  of  her  productive  energy,  and  needs  to  pass 
through  many  successive  stages  of  development  ere  she  reaches 
her  consummate  works.  Thus  the  earth  produced  things  coming 
up  with  strange  face  and  limbs,  monstrous  things,  creatures  two- 
fold, androgynous,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  and  widely  dif- 
ferent from  both,  creatures  without  feet,  without  hands,  without 
mouths,  or  with  limbs  cleaving  to  the  body,  and  the  like.  But  all 
such,  he  says,  had  in  them  a  natural  unfitness ;  they  could  not 
grow,  or  long  live,  and  so  they  soon  perished  off.  Such  phenom- 
ena Lucretius  elsewhere  uses,  as  do  materialistic  writers  now,  to 
disprove  final  cause  and  all  design  in  nature.  But  in  regard 
to  creatures  that  were  fitted  for  growth  and  continuance,  Lucre- 
tius discourses  of  the  preservation  of  species  and  of  the  final  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest,  quite  in  the  modern  Darwinian  manner,  and 
he  seems  to  have  a  theory  of  the  origin  of  species  in  some  respects 
quite  like  that  of  Mr.  Darwin.  Many  species,  he  says,  must  have 
died  out,  because  they  lacked  the  needed  powers  of  self-protection, 
such  as  fleetness  or  craft  or  courage,  or  because  they  could  not  be 
turned  to  use  by  man,  and  be  protected ;  hence  they  fell  a  prey 
to  other  species,  and,  unable  to  endure  the  struggle  for  existence, 
they  disappeared,  leaving  the  superior  species  masters  of  the  situ- 
ation. 

In  the  remainder  of  the  book  we  have  from  Lucretius  a  com- 


LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA.  335 

prehensive  survey  of  the  natural  history  of  human  society  and  civ- 
ilization ;  the  gradual  rise  of  man  from  a  savage  to  a  civilized 
state,  the  birth  of  the  arts,  the  useful  and  the  fine,  the  growth  of 
social  and  political  institutions,  and  the  origin  of  language  and 
letters,  and  of  religion  and  religious  worship.  The  Lucretian  end 
of  the  whole  survey  is,  of  course,  to  show  that  all  human  progress 
is  natural ;  it  is  of  human  development  by  the  way  of  experience ; 
it  is  nowise  of  divine  guidance,  no  God  in  history.  Only  in  a  very 
condensed  way  can  I  present  here  these  views  of  Lucretius.  The 
primitive  men  were  near  akin  to  the  beasts  of  the  field.  They 
lived  in  the  woods,  or  in  caves  and  dens ;  they  fed  on  acorns  or 
berries ;  they  drank  from  the  springs  and  the  streams.  Gradually 
with  time  they  got  themselves  huts  and  skins  and  fire ;  they  built 
towns ;  they  joined  ties  of  family,  of  neighborhood,  of  nation.  As 
to  language,  that  was  a  natural  thing  —  no  invention,  nothing  con- 
ventional. Nature  taught  all  how  to  use  the  tongue,  and  use 
struck  out  words  for  the  names  of  things.  On  the  language  of 
song,  and  music  generally,  Lucretius  has  elsewhere  a  curious  pas- 
sage, and  in  his  best  poetic  manner.  Only  a  hint  of  it  can  I  now 
give  you.  Song,  men  first  caught  from  birds.  The  liquid  notes 
of  the  birds  men  imitated  with  the  mouth  long  before  they  came 
to  sing  smooth-running  verses.  Then  the  whistlings  of  the  zephyr 
through  the  hollows  of  reeds  by  the  streams  first  taught  peasants 
to  blow  into  hollow  stalks.  Then  came  the  shepherd  pipe,  played 
by  rustic  fingers,  and  accompanying  sweet,  plaintive  ditties,  filling 
the  air  through  pathless  woods  and  forests.  This  was  the  culmi- 
nating joy  of  all  rustic  festivals.  This  traditional  music  has  come 
down  to  us,  the  poet  adds,  though  now  by  scientific  study  men  are 
taught  to  keep  the  proper  time,  and  come  to  be  more  elaborate  in 
their  style ;  but  for  all  that  they  get  not  a  jot  more  enjoyment 
than  erst  the  rugged  sons  of  earth  received. 

After  abundant  and  exhausting  experience  of  a  life  of  brute 
force,  they  settled  by  policy  upon  the  even  rule  of  law  and  equity 
and  right.  At  this  point  occurs  a  passage  in  the  book  of  striking 
moral  force :  "  Thence,"  he  writes,  "  fear  of  punishment  mars  the 
prizes  of  life,  for  violence ,  and  wrong  inclose  as  in  a  net  all  who 
commit  them ;  and  they  mostly  recoil  on  him  from  whom  they 
began ;  and  it  is  not  easy  for  the  man  who,  by  his  deeds,  violates 
the  peace  of  the  community  to  lead  a  tranquil  life.  For  though 
he  eludes  God  and  man,  he  must  needs  have  a  misgiving  that  his 
guilty  secret  will  not  be  kept  forever."  Mr.  Munro  says  of  this 


386  LUCRETIUS'  POEM,  DE  RERUM  NATURA. 

last  sentence,  that  there  is  probably  some  "  sarcasm  in  the  use  of 
the  word  '  God ; ' "  but  is  it  not  rather  said  in  soberest  earnest, 
the  poet's  moral  and  religious  instincts  getting  the  better,  for  the 
moment,  of  his  materialistic  theories?  Finally,  we  have  in  this 
book  a  passage  in  which  Lucretius  endeavors  to  explain  the  cause 
of  divine  worship,  of  temples  and  altars  and  all  their  services. 
The  passage,  though  very  impressive  in  its  descriptions,  is  some- 
what obscure.  At  first  the  writer  seems  to  be  tracing  religion  to 
a  vague  and  yet  theistic  view  of  the  world,  which  sees  in  the  move- 
ments of  the  heavens  and  the  orderly  succession  of  the  seasons 
the  presence  and  guidance  of  a  divine  Being.  But,  after  all,  he  is 
rather  describing  what  he  considers  a  superstitious  fear  of  some 
hidden  power,  perilous  to  human  welfare,  in  the  phenomena  of 
storm  and  lightning  and  earthquake,  which  men,  in  their  igno- 
rance of  natural  causes,  suppose  to  be  divine,  and  which  they  there- 
fore seek  to  propitiate  by  worship  and  sacrifice.  The  truth  is,  the 
idea  of  Deity  is  out  of  place  in  the  theory  of  Lucretius,  as  it  is 
in  any  materialistic  theory.  He  speaks  of  gods,  it  is  true,  as  im- 
mortal and  blessed  beings,  precluded  from  all  care  and  rule  over 
the  world ;  but  his  theory  must  assign  to  them  a  material  origin, 
just  as  much  as  to  men  and  to  animals,  or  to  gross  matter  itself. 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

A   COLLEGE   LECTURE,   WRITTEN  IN   1875. 

THE  theory  of  Lucretius  is,  as  Lange  has  said,  one  of  the 
earliest  attempts  of  philosophical  speculation  to  explain  the  origin 
and  manifold  life  of  the  world.  As  expounded  by  Lucretius, 
it  professes  to  be  a  complete  materialism,  as  it  aims  to  explain 
the  universe  solely  by  matter,  and  by  matter  moving  in  obedience 
to  purely  mechanical  principles.  This  Lucretian  materialism  is 
also  atomism,  as  it  represents  the  gross  matter,  of  which  all  bodies 
are  composed,  to  be  ultimately  resolvable  into  atoms.  This  mate- 
rialism of  Lucretius  is  the  materialism  of  subsequent  times  and 
also  of  our  own  times.  It  is  not  always  called  materialism;  it 
is  often  called  naturalism,  sometimes  pantheism,  and  sometimes 
also  theism.  We  hear,  too,  from  the  modern  materialism  less 
of  atoms  and  atomic  impulsions  than  of  molecules  and  of  molecular 
forces ;  but  then  the  molecules  come  from  the  atoms,  and  the 
molecular  forces  play  into  all  bodies  very  much  like  the  atomic 
impulsions ;  and  so  just  as  with  Lucretius,  so  now  with  some 
physicists  of  more  or  less  pronounced  materialistic  principles, 
matter  is  the  beginning  and  source  of  all  things.  I  say  here 
some  physicists,  because,  of  course,  these  physicists  are  material- 
istic in  their  principles,  not  from  being  physicists  as  such,  but  from 
being  such  physicists.  Certainly  they  are  in  error  who  suppose 
that  the  progress  of  materialism  is  identical  with  the  progress 
of  physical  science,  and  that  those  who  represent  the  one  represent 
also  the  other.  Doubtless  men  have  been  drawn  into  materialism 
by  too  exclusively  dealing  with  the  physical  side  of  things ;  but 
it  might  also  be  urged  that  other  men  have  been  drawn  into 
idealism  by  too  exclusively  dwelling  in  the  realm  of  metaphysics. 
Not  all  the  vast  reach  of  progress  in  modern  physical  science 
need  bring  any  one  a  single  step  towards  materialism ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  may  lead  all  men  to  an  ever  widening  spiritual  view 
of  the  material  universe,  and  an  ever  profounder  adoration  of 
its  Creator.  And  in  fact,  notwithstanding  the  marked  material- 
istic tendency  of  much  of  the  scientific  speculation  of  our  times, 


338  THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

some  of  the  foremost  of  living  scientific  thinkers  and  writers 
are  pronounced  theists.  With  this  passing  explanation,  let  me 
proceed  to  say  that  modern  materialism  rules  out  of  nature  all 
intelligent  design  just  as  much  as  the  ancient  divine  intervention 
is  rejected  by  Lucretius  as  "  the  meddling  of  the  gods,"  and 
by  a  well-known  modern  writer  is  called  in  hardly  less  pagan 
phrase  "the  intrusion  of  a  supernatural  artificer."  One  is  also 
conscious  in  reading  some  of  our  scientific  writers,  that  their 
science  takes  an  attitude  to  religion  not  less  unfriendly  than  was 
the  philosophy  of  Lucretius.  Under  the  open  opposition  of  the 
one  to  superstition  and  of  the  other  to  theology,  there  seems  to  be 
in  both  alike  a  lurking  opposition  to  religion  itself.  Yet  Lucretius 
believes  in  gods,  though  as  we  have  seen  they  seem  to  be  of 
a  questionable  divine  quality.  So  Professor  Tyndall  has  at  least 
a  suggestion  of  Deity  in  his  "inscrutable  power  manifested  in 
the  whole  process  of  evolution."  He  also  asserts  his  belief  in 
"  the  facts  of  religious  feeling,"  but  he  assigns  them  a  place  not 
"  in  the  region  of  knowledge,"  over  which,  he  says,  it  holds  no 
command,  but  "in  the  region  of  emotion,"  which,  he  says,  "is 
its  proper  and  elevated  sphere."  With  Mr.  Tyndall's  construction 
of  knowledge  and  of  science  the  statement  may  be  admitted ;  but 
apart  from  such  a  construction  it  is  not  easy  to  perceive  why 
religion,  which  in  the  history  of  the  world  and  in  the  life  of  mil- 
lions of  men  is  a  reality,  an  objective  fact,  just  as  much  as  nature, 
may  not  legitimately  have  place  in  the  region  of  knowledge  ; 
and  why  there  may  not  legitimately  be  a  science  of  religion  just 
as  much  as  a  science  of  nature. 

In  reflecting  upon  this  materialistic  view  of  the  world  as  pre- 
sented by  Lucretius,  it  is  one's  first  thought  that  it  all  rests,  in  its 
construction  of  matter,  only  upon  hypothesis.  The  atomic  doctrine 
is  something  certainly  not  proved,  not  capable  of  proof  by  the 
methods  of  positive  science,  by  sense  and  experiment.  As  de- 
scribed by  Lange  and  others,  it  is  at  best  a  convenient  hypothesis 
for  working  use,  and  not  sure  in  its  value  for  that.  No  one  will 
assert  of  it  that  it  belongs  to  that  class  of  things  which  lie  within 
that  select  region  of  knowledge,  where  physical  science,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  is  said  to  reign  supreme.  Still,  this  theory  is  accepted, 
as  we  have  it  on  the  best  authorities,  and  ought  to  be  and  must 
be  accepted  in  explanation  of  the  constitution  of  gross  matter. 
Lucretius'  reasoning  is  admitted  to  be  just,  that  there  are  such 
things  as  atoms,  ultimate,  indivisible  particles  of  matter.  There  is 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS.  339 

a  passage  in  Newton's  writings  which  gives  the  general  principles 
very  much  in  the  ancient  Lucretian  manner,  but  with  the  radically 
qualitative  exception  that  they  put  it  on  a  theistic  basis.  "  All 
things  considered,"  says  Newton,  "  it  seems  probable  to  me  that 
God  in  the  beginning  formed  matter  in  solid,  massy,  hard,  impen- 
etrable, movable  particles,  of  such  sizes  and  figures,  and  with 
such  other  properties  and  in  such  proportion  to  space,  as  most 
conduced  to  the  end  for  which  he  formed  them,  and  that  these 
primitive  particles  being  solids  are  incomparably  harder  than  any 
porous  bodies  compounded  of  them,  even  so  very  hard  as  never  to 
wear  or  break  to  pieces."  "  While  the  particles  continue  entire, 
they  may  compose  bodies  of  one  and  the  same  texture  in  all  ages ; 
but  should  they  wear  away  or  break  in  pieces,  the  nature  of 
things  depending  on  them  would  be  changed."  It  is  also  stated 
by  a  recent  scientific  writer,  Professor  Jenkin  of  Edinburgh,  that 
"  if  matter  in  motion  be  conceived  as  the  sole  ultimate  form  of 
energy,  Lucretius  must  be  allowed  great  merit  in  having  taught 
that  the  motion  of  matter  was  as  indestructible  as  its  material 
existence"  "If  energy  (he  adds),  as  he  believed,  be  due  solely 
to  motion,  .  .  .  though  this  last  point  has  not  been  proved,  then 
his  (Lucretius')  doctrine  is  true ;  and  his  proposition  (on  this 
head)  foreshadows  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy." 
It  is  interesting  in  reading  Lucretius  in  the  light  of  these  testi- 
monies of  modern  science  to  see  how  ardent  was  the  curiosity  of 
the  ancient  mind,  Roman  as  well  as  Greek,  to  pierce  the  veil  that 
hid  from  it  the  secrets  of  nature,  and  how  in  the  absence  of  just 
and  wide  observation,  and  of  the  resources  of  method  and  experi- 
ment, its  subtile  insight  and  intellectual  strength  were  able  to 
achieve,  as^  by  a  kind  of  creative  act,  such  great  and  lasting 
results.  If  only  the  writings  of  Democritus,  Epicurus,  Empedo- 
cles,  and  others  had  come  down  to  us  in  their  entireness  instead 
of  the  mere  disjointed  fragments  which  are  now  extant,  we  might 
have  the  means  of  tracing  a  continuous  progress  of  the  physical 
science  of  the  ancients,  and  be  able  to  form  a  more  correct  judg- 
ment of  the  investigations  and  results  of  those  masters  of  Lu- 
cretius of  whom  he  always  speaks  with  admiration  and  affection. 
But  Lucretius  would  have  cared  little  for  men's  praise  of  his 
physical  doctrines  for  their  own  sake ;  it  was  their  ethical  applica- 
tions which  interested  him,  and  which  he  longed  with  even  a 
passionate  desire  to  have  men  accept,  and  make  practical  to  their 
own  lives.  He  longed  to  show  that  the  atoms  and  their  properties 


340  THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

accounted  as  cause  for  all  existence,  and  that  Nature  was  sufficient 
of  herself  for  all  phenomena  to  the  end  that  he  might  rid  the 
world,  as  he  says,  of  her  haughty  lords,  and  men  of  all  their 
superstitious  terrors. 

If  we  consider  only  the  theology  and  the  religion  with  which 
Lucretius  had  to  do,  we  may  say  that  this  end  was  no  unworthy 
one,  as  I  will  try  to  show  more  fully  by  and  by  ;  but  the  means 
which  he  employed  in  his  atomic  system  were  wholly  inadequate 
to  his  end.  Granting  the  doctrine  of  the  atoms  and  their  proper- 
ties to  be  fully  proved,  it  might  explain  the  ultimate  constitution 
and  perhaps  the  mechanical  motions  of  physical  things  as  already 
existing,  but  by  the  very  Lucretian  construction  it  does  not  ex- 
plain the  existence  itself  even  of  these,  much  less  of  all  else  in 
the  world,  and,  least  of  all,  the  origin  and  continuance  of  all  this 
world's  order  and  manifold  life.  The  atoms,  powerless  themselves, 
can  produce  nothing ;  as  first-beginnings  they  are  just  as  inade- 
quate to  production  as  the  element  of  water  in  Thales'  system, 
or  of  fire  in  Heraclitus,  or  the  four  elements  together  in  Empedo- 
cles.  Especially  conceived  and  described  as  they  are  by  Lu- 
cretius as  lifeless,  senseless,  without  intelligence,  how  can  they  by 
any  conceivable  process  of  development  produce  beings  endowed 
with  life,  sense,  and  intelligence?  Indeed,  it  is  curious  to  see  how 
Lucretius,  who  sets  such  store  by  the  working  of  cause  and  effect, 
can  (II.  973-990)  most  naively  make  himself  merry  over  his  own 
solecisms  of  causation.  People,  he  says,  try  very  hard  not  to 
believe  that  sense  and  consciousness  can  come  from  what  is  insen- 
sible and  unconscious.  But  if  sense,  he  argues,  must  be  in  the 
elements  of  all  living  beings  in  order  that  these  beings  may  have 
sense,  why  then  the  elements  from  which  men  come  must  them- 
selves have  the  same  powers  of  passion,  reasoning,  and  speech 
that  men  have;  and  then,  to  be  sure,  the  human  atoms  would 
laugh  and  weep  and  reason,  and  talk  cunningly  about  the  nature 
of  things,  and  indeed  inquire,  just  as  we  men  do  about  their  own 
first-beginnings.  All  this,  he  continues,  you  see  at  once  is  very 
absurd,  and  so,  as  in  this  special  case  men  can  feel  and  laugh  and , 
cry  and  reason  wisely,  though  not  made  of  laughing  and  crying 
and  reasoning  seeds  of  things,  you  must,  of  course,  believe  that,  in 
general,  all  things  which  we  see  to  have  sense  and  life  must  come 
of  things  wholly  devoid  of  sense  and  life.  It  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  Lucretius  explained  to  himself  such  assertions.  It 
would  seem  that  he  thought  life  and  consciousness  to  be  modes 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS.  341 

of  matter  or  the  results  of  combinations  of  matter ;  but  certainly 
his  theory  in  itself  gives  no  rational  account  of  their  origin.  The 
truth  is,  however,  that  perhaps  unconsciously,  certainly  inconsis- 
tently, he  supplements  his  theory  with  some  provisions  which  are 
not  germane  to  it.  We  have  seen,  indeed,  from  his  singular  view 
of  the  minimum  declination  of  the  atoms  that  he  ascribes  to  them 
the  power  of  swerving  at  will,  even  though  it  be  but  the  least  pos- 
sible swerving ;  so  far  forth  he  makes  them  intelligent,  at  least  as 
good  as  intelligent ;  for,  the  theory  notwithstanding,  they  act  in- 
telligently, just  as  men  do,  who,  he  himself  strenuously  insists  are 
endowed  with  free-will.  Then,  too,  if  the  atoms  have  volition  in 
them,  they  may  just  as  well  have  reason,  too,  and  creative  power, 
and  thus  they  would  have  less  difficulty  to  encounter  in  producing 
this  world  and  all  that  is  in  it.  But  do  not  modem  scientific 
writers  fail  as  signally  as  Lucretius  failed  in  trying  to  solve,  on 
materialistic  principles,  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  life  and 
mind  ?  They  differ  from  Lucretius,  in  that  with  a  larger  and 
truer  knowledge,  they  feel,  and  feel  intensely,  the  difficulty  of  the 
problem,  and  in  that  they  either  pronounce  it  to  be  insoluble  or 
leave  it  unsolved.  The  insoluble  alternative  has  been  given  in 
respect  to  the  explanation  of  mind  from  matter  in  a  statement 
very  powerfully  conceived  and  expressed  by  Professor  Tyndall. 
"  The  passage,"  he  says,  "  from  the  physics  of  the  brain  to  the 
corresponding  facts  of  consciousness  is  unthinkable.  Granted 
that  a  definite  thought  and  a  definite  molecular  action  in  the  brain 
occur  simultaneously,  we  do  not  possess  the  intellectual  organ,  nor 
apparently  any  rudiment  of  the  organ,  which  would  enable  us  to 
pass  by  a  process  of  reasoning  from  the  one  to  the  other.  They 
appear  together,  but  we  do  not  know  why.  Were  our  mind  and 
senses  so  expanded  as  to  see  and  feel  the  very  molecules  of  the 
brain,  .  .  .  and  were  we  intimately  acquainted  with  the  corre- 
sponding state  of  thought  and  feeling,  we  should  be  as  far  as  ever 
from  the  solution  of  the  problem,  '  How  are  these  physical  pro- 
cesses connected  with  the  facts  of  consciousness  ? '  The  chasm 
between  the  two  classes  of  phenomena  would  remain  intellectually 
impassable."  If  this  statement  is  true,  it  certainly  does  not  make 
for  any  system  known  in  history  by  the  name  of  materialism  ;  on 
the  contrary,  does  it  not  carry  with  it  the  necessary  inference,  that 
these  two  classes  of  phenomena,  so  wholly  unlike  in  character, 
spring  from  sources  equally  unlike  in  their  nature  ? 

In  respect  to  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  life,  I  think  it  must 


342  THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

be  conceded  that  recent  scientific  discussions  and  experiments 
touching  its  origin  from  matter  have  thus  far  left  the  problem 
unsolved.  Intensely  interesting,  however,  and  ever  fascinating, 
all  must  allow,  are  the  experiments  which  Mr.  Tyndall  cites  as 
suggesting  such  an  origin,  and  very  forcible,  though  far  from 
convincing,  the  reasoning  by  which,  as  he  says,  he  crosses  the 
boundary  of  experimental  evidence,  and  "  discerns  in  matter  the 
promise  and  potency  of  all  terrestrial  life."  I  think  we  all  share 
with  him,  and  in  exact  proportion  to  our  own  knowledge,  the 
admiration  which  he  so  nobly  feels  and  expresses  for  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  crystallization,  —  the  wonderful  way  in  which  the 
atoms  seem  to  hold  themselves  together,  —  the  wonderful  play  of 
force  by  which  the  molecules  of  water  build  themselves,  as  he 
beautifully  says,  into  the  sheets  of  crystals  which  every  winter 
roof  all  the  ponds  and  lakes.  We  go  just  as  far  as  he  goes,  but 
no  farther,  when  he  says  that  all  "  this  play  of  power  is  almost  as 
wonderful  as  the  play  of  vitality  itself."  Almost  as  wonderful ! 
Of  course  it  is  ;  but  for  all  that  we  are  not  convinced ;  and  judging 
from  his  words  he  is  not  convinced  himself  that  there  is  vitality  in 
the  ice,  form  though  it  does  these  crystals  so  wonderful  alike  in 
"their  outward  form  and  their  inward  texture."  And  we  are 
conscious  of  a  yet  higher  emotion  than  admiration  when  Mr.  Tyn- 
dall puts  the  question,  perhaps  anticipated  by  all,  "  Can  it  be  there 
is  no  being  in  nature  that  knows  more  about  these  matters  than  I 
do  ?  "  And  we  give  the  heartiest  assent  when  he  declares  that  "  the 
man  who  puts  that  question  to  himself,  if  he  be  not  a  shallow 
man,  .  .  .  will  never  answer  the  question  by  professing  the  creed 
of  Atheism."  In  like  manner  we  must  all  feel  the  full  force  of 
Mr.  Tyndall's  question,  "  Where  is  life  to  be  found,  divorced 
from  matter  ?  "  But  is  it  not  fair  to  ask,  Does  not  matter  exist  in 
forms  in  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  there  is  no  life,  where  it  has 
had  not  yet  any  union  with  life,  and  so  where  divorce  is  quite  out 
of  the  question  ?  And  if  so,  do  we  not  need  to  begin  there,  and 
then  be  taught  by  experiment,  which  alone  can  give  us  scientific 
knowledge,  that  matter  evolves  life,  and  intelligent,  conscious 
life?  But  Mr.  Huxley  teaches  us  that  "the  present  state  of 
knowledge  furnishes  us  with  no  link  between  the  living  and  the 
not  living."  And  Mr.  Tyndall  also  admits  "  the  inability  to 
point  to  any  satisfactory  experimental  proof  that  life  can  be  de- 
veloped save  from  demonstrable  antecedent  life."  Is  it  legitimate 
procedure,  then,  in  the  absence  of  all  experimental  evidence,  "  to 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS.  343 

trace  the  line  backward,"  —  as  the  expression  is,  —  from  non-liv- 
ing matter,  and  project  the  so-called  continuity  of  nature  beyond 
the  continuity  of  experience,  —  is  it  safe  to  take  this  leap  across 
the  void  which  may  prove  a  salto  mortale,  —  to  some  unseen,  fan- 
cied point,  where  living  matter  may  emerge  from  dead  matter? 
But  Mr.  Tyndall  considers  himself  compelled  to  this  procedure, 
because  otherwise  there  is  left  him  the  only  alternative  of  opening 
"the  doors  freely  to  the  conception  of  creative  acts."  It  has  been 
acutely  remarked  by  one  of  Mr.  Tyndall's  critics,  that  there  is  a 
fallacy  in  that  statement  in  the  use  of  the  word  freely.  It  carries 
with  it  the  supposition  that  one  must  believe  in  a  succession  of 
mediate  or  special  creative  acts  to  account  for  the  appearance 
of  the  organic  forms  of  life  in  the  world.  But  that  supposition  is 
not  at  all  necessary,  —  only  is  it  necessary  to  believe  in  a  creative 
act  at  all,  —  and  the  act  may  be  one  and  immediate.  Men  may 
differ  here  as  they  do  differ,  and  yet  agree  in  accepting  the  idea 
of  creation  itself.  One  distinguished  writer,  to  whom  I  have  be- 
fore referred,  the  late  Professor  Clerk-Maxwell,  who  was  one  of 
the  most  eminent  inquirers  in  the  realm  of  molecular  physics, 
inferred  directly  from  the  nature  and  properties  of  matter  the 
existence  of  a  First  Cause,  their  Maker. 

Mr.  Darwin's  conception  is,  that  the  Creator  introduced  into  the 
midst  of  dead  matter  one  primordial  living  form,  capable  of  self- 
development  into  other  living  forms.  Mr.  Tyndall  mentions  that 
"  Mr.  Darwin  quotes  with  satisfaction  the  words  of  a  celebrated 
author  and  divine  who  had  gradually  learned  to  see  that  it  was 
just  as  noble  a  conception  of  Deity  to  believe  that  He  created  a 
few  original  forms,  capable  of  self-development  into  other  and 
needful  forms,  as  to  believe  that  He  required  a  fresh  act  of  crea- 
tion to  supply  the  voids  caused  by  the  action  of  his  laws."  But 
he  adds  as  his  own  view,  that  "  the  anthropomorphism,  which  it 
was  Mr.  Darwin's  object  to  set  aside,  is  as  firmly  associated  with 
the  creation  of  a  few  forms  as  with  the  creation  of  a  multitude." 
In  this  case  Mr.  Tyndall  does  in  theory  what  Lucretius  did  only 
practically,  when  he  represented  his  atoms  as  endowed  with  voli- 
tion, that  is,  he  supplements  the  conception  of  matter  with  proper- 
ties not  known  to  belong  to  it.  Indeed,  he  says  distinctly,  "  let  us 
radically  change  our  notions  of  matter."  This  would  seem  to  be 
materialism  in  a  development  transition  ;  it  is  already  materialism 
and  something  else.  Indeed,  he  proceeds  to  ask,  "  Is  there  not  a 
temptation  to  close  to  some  extent  with  Lucretius,  when  he  affirms 


344          THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

that  Nature  is  seen  to  do  all  things  spontaneously  of  herself  ? " 
or  with  Giordano  Bruno,  when  he  declares  that  matter  is  not  '*that 
mere  empty  capacity  which  philosophers  have  pictured  her  to  be, 
but  the  universal  matter,  who  brings  forth  all  things  from  her- 
self." But  this  mention  of  Lucretius  and  Bruno  makes  us  ask 
him  the  question,  whether  matter,  then,  is  created.  This  question 
he  does  not  answer,  so  far  as  I  know.  But  if  matter  is  uncreated, 
and  yet  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  God  is  retained,  as  it  is  re- 
tained in  the  writings  of  Professor  Tyndall,  then  we  cannot  avoid 
the  conclusion  of  the  eternity  of  matter,  and  of  its  identity  with 
God.  This  is  materialism  already  developed  into  pantheism,  and 
this  is  the  position  of  Bruno ;  and  Mr.  Tyndall  also  declares  Bruno 
to  be  "  not  an  atheist  or  a  materialist,  but  a  pantheist."  Nor  is 
this  strange,  for  as  Lange  has  said,  and  also  when  he  is  speaking 
of  Bruno,  "  The  materialist  who  defines  God  as  the  sum  of  ani- 
mated nature  becomes  at  once  a  pantheist  without  giving  up  his 
materialistic  views." 

There  remains  to  be  examined  in  Lucretius  the  principle,  if 
that  word  we  may  use,  by  which  in  the  denial  of  all  intelligent 
design  he  represents  the  world  to  have  come  into  being.  We  have 
seen,  in  passing  from  his  Second  to  his  Fifth  Book,  how  from  that 
strange  scene  of  the  atoms  whirling  and  clashing  in  wild  chaotic 
disorder  we  at  once  pass  into  all  the  order  and  beauty  and  glory 
of  the  material  universe,  and  into  the  midst  of  all  living  things 
produced  from  the  earth,  now  suddenly  transformed  into  a  prolific 
source  of  universal  life.  When  we  ask  how  these  atoms  have  com- 
bined so  as  to  secure  all  this  production,  how  they  have  arranged 
themselves  into  this  wondrous  order,  and  how  they  are  keeping  up 
such  a  regularity  of  movement,  we  have  ever  that  passage  to  con- 
sider which  I  quoted  in  the  last  lecture,  and  which  with  slight  ver- 
bal changes  occurs  four  times  in  Lucretius'  work.  Not  to  translate 
it  again  in  full,  it  is  in  substance  thus :  Not  by  the  gods,  but  by 
nature  was  the  world  made ;  not  by  intelligent  design,  but  after 
trying  motions  and  unions  of  every  kind  in  infinite  time  by  chance 
collisions,  they  at  last  fell  into  those  arrangements  out  of  which 
this  world  is  formed  and  by  which  it  is  preserved.  It  is  needless 
at  this  late  day  to  spend  time  and  words  in  refutation  of  this 
Lucretian  doctrine,  generally  known  by  the  name  of  the  fortui- 
tous concourse  of  atoms.  But  it  is  worth  while  to  gain  from  the 
context  of  the  passage,  wherever  it  is  declared  by  Lucretius,  a 
distinct  idea  of  how  it  lay  in  his  own  mind.  It  is  evident  that  he 


THE   THEORY   OF  LUCRETIUS.  345 

thought  the  working  of  chance,  as  a  kind  of  causation  in  mat- 
ter, could  not  go  on  always,  producing  variations  of  disorder ; 
given  infinite  time  to  the  variability,  some  time  or  other  the  disor- 
derly variations  would  come  to  an  end,  and  then,  at  last,  chance 
itself  would  bring  in  a  stage  of  orderly  organization  as  a  happy 
coincidence.  Thus  it  was  that  he  came  to  rest  his  faith  in  pure 
variability  acting  at  random  in  infinite  time,  as  the  cause  of  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  and  man  and  all  living  beings,  that  with 
their  manifold  orderly  arrangements  are  luminous  with  the  evi- 
dence of  supreme  intelligence.  Strange  that  a  great  thinker, 
who  was  construing  the  world  by  mind,  could  deny  mind  in  its 
construction !  With  reason,  however,  it  was  that  Lucretius  put  as 
the  alternative  concerning  the  final  explanation  of  things  either 
design  or  chance ;  and  the  wisest  and  best  thought  of  the  world, 
both  in  ancient  and  in  modern  times,  while  it  discerned  and 
accepted  no  other,  has  rested  with  confidence  in  the  explanation 
from  design.  That  argument  from  design,  coupled  with  a  belief  in 
causation,  which  rises  from  the  contemplation  of  the  innumerable 
facts  of  arrangement  and  system  in  nature  looking  towards  defi- 
nite ends,  to  the  conception  of  an  intelligent  author  of  the  uni- 
verse, has  ever  formed,  from  times  long  anterior  to  Lucretius,  the 
secure  basis  of  Natural  Theology.  Indeed,  five  hundred  years  be- 
fore Lucretius,  and  a  hundred  before  his  master  Democritus,  the 
fundamental  idea  of  this  argument  first  emerged  in  Greek  thought 
in  Anaxagoras'  doctrine  of  the  Novs  or  Intelligence  as  the  de- 
signing and  upholding  principle  of  the  universe.  Of  this  Grecian 
thinker,  who  was  thus  the  first  to  introduce  into  philosophy  the 
conception  of  final  cause,  Aristotle  has  left  on  record  the  remark, 
that  "  this  man,  who  first  announced  that  Intelligence  was  the 
cause  of  the  world  and  of  all  orderly  arrangement  in  nature,  ap- 
peared like  a  man  in  his  sober  senses  in  comparison  with  those  who 
had  heretofore  been  speaking  at  random  and  in  the  dark."  After 
him  Socrates  adopted  this  idea,  and  wrought  it  in  the  mould  of  his 
own  moral  genius  into  a  practical  proof  for  the  existence  of  one 
Supreme  Being  as  the  framer  and  preserver  of  the  entire  Cosmos 
(Xenophon,  Mem.  4,  3,  13)  ;  and  Plato,  following  his  master, 
but  in  his  own  idealistic  manner,  strove  ever  to  show  that  all  phe- 
nomena presupposed  eternal  ideas,  and  that  these  gradually  led  up 
to  the  Supreme  Idea  —  the  highest  Good  —  to  God.  If  we  trace 
the  fortunes  of  this  argument  in  scientific  thought,  we  find  it 
maintained  by  the  last  word  of  that  thought, "  The  Reign  of  Law," 


34C  THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

uttered  so  decisively  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  even  as  by  the 
utterances  of  Lord  Bacon  made  in  the  very  first  beginnings  of 
modern  science  which  we  are  wont  to  associate  with  that  great 
name.  Bacon,  from  his  insisting  upon  the  use  of  efficient  causes 
in  their  proper  spheres  in  physics,  has  sometimes  been  repre- 
sented as  unfriendly  to  the  argument  from  design.  But  he  de- 
clares himself  as  follows :  "  When  Democritus  and  Epicurus 
asserted  the  fabric  of  all  things  to  be  raised  by  a  fortuitous  con- 
course of  atoms,  without  the  help  of  mind,  they  became  universally 
ridiculous."  "  I  had  rather  believe,"  he  adds,  "  all  the  fables  in 
legend,  and  the  Talmud,  and  the  Koran,  than  that  this  universal 
frame  is  without  mind ;  .  .  .  for  while  the  mind  of  man  looketh 
upon  the  second  causes  scattered,  it  may  sometimes  rest  on  them 
and  go  no  farther  ;  but  when  it  beholdeth  the  chain  of  them  con- 
federate and  linked  together,  it  must  needs  fly  to  Providence  and 
Deity."  And  the  Duke  of  Argyll  in  the  far-reaching  scope  of  his 
argument,  which  comprehends  the  operations  alike  of  nature  and 
of  the  minds  of  men,  all  the  history  alike  of  the  world's  preserva- 
tion and  its  creation,  fixes  the  idea  of  everywhere  reigning  law  in 
order  produced  by  contrivance  and  for  a  purpose  of  will.  So 
essential  is  this  principle  of  design  to  the  final  explanation  of  all 
things,  that  the  theories  of  modern  naturalists  which  exclude  it 
seem,  with  all  the  truth  which  may  belong  to  them,  yet  to  be  as 
essentially  imperfect  as  the  ancient  theory  of  Lucretius ;  indeed, 
if  pushed  to  a  last  analysis,  they  must  fall  back  upon  the  Lucre- 
tian  alternative  of  chance.  Is  it  not  so  with  regard  to  the  theory 
of  natural  selection  in  explanation  of  the  origin  of  species  ?  This 
theory  proceeds,  if  I  understand  it,  exactly  upon  the  Lucretian 
conception  of  variability  and  variation  in  infinite  time.  As  we 
read  Mr.  Darwin's  intensely  interesting  narratives  of  his  laborious 
and  patient  experiments  in  trying  to  make  species,  if  I  may  use 
this  expression,  we  may  readily  admit  that  nature  selects  even  as 
in  those  experiments  man  selects,  and  that  both  processes  proceed 
by  manifold  variations  with  all  their  marvelous  results.  But  after 
all,  the  natural  selection,  just  as  the  artificial,  is  at  best  only  a  re- 
sult, it  is  no  agent.  Do  not  all  the  experiments  point  unerringly 
to  the  sole  natural  conclusion  that  back  of  all  the  variation  and  all 
the  selection,  back  of  all  nature,  as  of  man,  there  is  intelligence 
acting  with  design,  and  bringing  about,  not  like  man,  what  has 
been  called  an  "  astonishing  amount  of  divergence  from  an  existing 
species,"  but  also  producing  new  species  as  well.  But  just  as  Lu- 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS.  347 

cretius  construes  all  supernatural  agency  in  the  genesis  of  things 
into  "  a  meddling  of  the  gods,"  so  it  is  now  said  that  the  idea  of 
the  presence  of  intelligence  in  nature,  acting  from  design,  is  "  an- 
thropomorphism, or  a  supernatural  artificer  acting  after  human 
fashion."  All  conclusive,  however,  is  the  remark  on  this  head  of 
M.  Janet,  in  his  work  on  "  Final  Cause,"  that  "  the  slippery  and 
perilous  point  in  Darwinism  is  the  passage  from  artificial  to  natu- 
ral selection ;  it  is  to  establish  that  Nature,  blind  and  purposeless, 
is  able  to  reach  the  same  result  by  accidental  circumstance,  which 
man  obtains  by  deliberate  and  purposed  diligence." 

So,  too,  the  theories,  whether  the  ancient  or  the  modern,  which 
insist  so  much  upon  natural  laws,  or  natural  causation,  fail  to 
reach  any  rational  view  of  the  origin  of  the  world,  so  long  as  they 
leave  out  of  view  the  idea  of  design.  It  is  laws  and  their  unbend- 
ing, persistent  course,  which  Lucretius  is  ever  teaching  with  a 
passionate  earnestness.  In  his  thought,  as  in  modern  thought, 
law  reigns  supreme ;  chance  itself  is  ultimately  resolved  into  neces- 
sity ;  seu  casu,  seu  vi,  he  says,  call  it  chance  or  force,  law  is  in  all 
nature,  and  in  nature  all  is  law.  It  is  this  conception  of  law  which 
gives  his  thought  such  stately  grandeur  as  it  marches  through  its 
story  of  the  world ;  it  is  this  which  makes  a  sure  repose  of  order 
amidst  the  changing  phenomena  of  nature  and  of  man's  life,  and 
fixes  an  equilibrium  of  opposing  forces  in  the  ever  ongoing  pro- 
cesses of  renovation  and  decay,  of  birth  and  death.  It  is  this  faith 
in  law  which  he  upheld  in  opposition  to  a  faith  in  the  gods  of  the 
ancient  mythology.  But  he  failed  to  see  that  natural  laws  with- 
out a  Supreme  Lawgiver  made  another  mythology  more  rational 
only  in  seeming,  —  a  kind  of  philosophical  mythology  quite  as  in- 
consistent with  reason  as  the  older  poetic  one.  And  without  the 
conception  of  an  ultimate  source  of  law  in  a  Supreme  Intelligent 
Will,  does  it  fare  any  better  with  the  laws  of  modern  science? 
One  might  as  well  accept  the  poetic  mythology  made  up  of  Nep- 
tune and  Ceres  and  Dryads  and  the  like  as  a  theory  of  the  origin 
and  government  of  the  world,  as  the  philosophic  one  of  motion  and 
gravity  and  impulsion,  or  the  modern  scientific  one  of  atoms  and 
molecular  and  polar  forces,  and  the  rest,  which  haunt  the  top 
and  the  sides  of  this  newest  upheaved  Olympus.  And  what  help 
is  given  us  by  resolving  the  many  laws  into  the  one  law,  and  one 
law  acting  with  an  unbroken  continuity — as  in  the  ancient  theory, 
the  law  of  inexorable  necessity,  or  in  the  modern,  the  law  of  evo- 
lution or  development.  The  one  law  presupposes  the  Lawgiver 


348  THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

just  as  much  as  the  many  laws,  and  the  one  law  expressing  every- 
where intelligence  must  just  as  much  emanate  from  the  Supreme 
Intelligent  Will. 

As  the  Duke  of  Argyll  so  distinctly  says,  "  the  laws  of  nature 
come  visibly  from  one  pervading  mind,  and  express  the  authority 
of  one  enduring  kingdom."  Indeed,  by  the  luminous  interpreta- 
tion given  to  natural  phenomena  by  the  scientific  thought  unfolded 
in  this  writer's  "  Reign  of  Law,"  we  may  apply  to  natural  laws 
that  fine  word  of  the  Greek  poet  which  was  applied  by  him  to  the 
laws  of  the  moral  world :  — 

(These)  "  laws  are  set  on  high 
Heaven-born,  their  only  sire  Olympus  ; 

For  these  there  lives  a  mighty  God 
Who  ne'er  grows  old." 

And  here  let  me  put  in  a  plea  for  Lucretius,  in  explanation  of 
his  attitude  to  religion  in  his  time.  We  can  far  more  easily  accept 
his  procedure  in  combating  a  form  of  polytheism  which  was  at 
variance  with  all  philosophy,  than  that  of  any  modern  naturalist 
who,  in  contending  for  an  exclusively  natural  causation,  is  in  con- 
flict with  a  pure  monotheistic  religion,  which  furnishes  a  truly 
religious  basis  for  the  existence  and  growth  of  science.  Lange 
has  a  very  instructive  thought  on  this  head.  He  is  speaking  of 
the  influence  of  Christianity,  as  a  complete  monotheistic  religion, 
upon  the  history  of  materialism.  With  a  polytheistic  religion,  a 
philosophy  which  teaches  law  in  nature  has  difficulties  to  contend 
with  as  thousand-fold  in  its  ranks  and  orders  as  is  the  mythologic 
system  itself.  But  when  you  assume  the  grand  thought  of  one 
God,  and  of  his  one  uniform  agency  in  the  universe,  then  is  the 
connection  of  things  by  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  not  only  think- 
able, but  it  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  assumption.  What 
the  historian  of  materialism  here  says  of  opposition  of  a  pagan 
philosopher  to  a  polytheistic  religion  applies  with  fullest  force  to 
Lucretius.  And  yet  more,  and  far  more.  His  opposition  was 
caused  quite  as  much  by  moral  as  by  intellectual  motives.  He 
was  zealous  to  overthrow  the  gods  of  the  popular  religion,  not 
only  because  they  were  conceived  as  wrong  in  violation  of  the 
truth  of  nature,  but  because  they  were  conceived  as  capricious 
and  cruel  and  revengeful,  and  because  they  held  men  in  the  spell 
of  superstition,  or  under  the  sway  of  a  terrible  tyranny.  Who 
can  believe  such  gods,  he  says,  who  torment  here  and  hereafter, 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS.  349 

not  injustice  and  crime  alone,  but  innocence  and  goodness  too. 
He  would  hear  nothing  of  augury  and  divination,  —  all  the  num- 
berless presages  and  omens  in  men's  dreams  and  fancies,  in  na- 
ture's phenomena,  —  in  lightning,  wind,  and  rain,  the  flight  of 
birds,  and  in  the  rustling  of  leaves,  he  would  away  with  them  all, 
as  foes  to  human  peace  and  well-being.  He  found  not  only  the 
crowd — the  turba  Remi — believing,  or  seeming  to  believe,  all  this, 
but  also  men  of  intelligence  and  culture.  They  might  rail  like 
old  Cato  at  the  augurs,  but  they  felt  in  their  hearts  and  their  lives 
the  pressure  of  the  augural  faith.  Think  of  poets,  he  might  say, 
embalming  in  pious  verse  these  senseless  and  impious  traditions  ; 
think  of  sober  historians  recording  in  good  faith  all  the  prodigies 
and  omens  of  the  successive  years,  and  as  for  our  public  men, 
think,  for  instance,  of  Sulla,  so  sensual  and  atrociously  cruel,  styl- 
ing himself  the  Felix,  and  ascribing  his  felicity  to  these  gods, 
thanking  Venus  for  his  victories  alike  in  battle  and  in  love,  —  think 
of  him  stealing  the  image  of  Apollo  from  off  the  Delphic  altar, 
and  then  devoutly  kissing  and  doing  it  homage  in  prayer.  In  the 
name  of  Epicurus,  let  us  be  rid  of  these  gods  many  and  lords 
many ;  let  us  by  teaching  the  true  doctrine  of  nature  and  man 
deliver  the  world  from  unreason  and  superstition,  and  so  bring 
into  it  light  and  peace  and  happiness.  We  may  have  some  char- 
ity for  this  Lucretian  unbelief,  though  we  may  feel  and  know  it 
to  be  unbelief  still.  He  did  not,  and  perhaps  he  could  not,  see 
that  he  was  combating  errors  with  error ;  that  in  ridding  men  of 
superstition  he  was  robbing  them  of  religion ;  that  in  overcoming 
fears  of  the  gods,  he  was  destroying  the  fear  of  God,  which  a 
writer  a  thousand  years  earlier  than  himself  had  declared  to  be  the 
beginning  of  wisdom.  But  the  primal  beliefs  of  man's  nature  will 
ever  have  their  supremacy  over  false  theories,  let  them  be  wrought 
out  with  whatsoever  cunning  of  the  mind.  Democritus,  in  spite  of 
his  material  atheism,  believed  and  worshiped  the  gods ;  he  counted 
as  truly  happy  only  the  man  whom  the  gods  loved ;  he  called  the 
soul,  too,  because  of  the  finest  atoms,  the  divine  part  of  man. 
Epicurus,  too,  as  we  have  seen,  adored  the  gods,  and  deemed  the 
idea  of  their  divine  power  the  most  elevating  of  all  ideas ;  though 
they  had  no  place  in  his  system,  they  certainly,  as  Lange  puts  it, 
had  a  subjective  relation  to  himself  and  his  own  life. 

This  noble  inconsistency  we  see  everywhere  in  Lucretius ;  and 
in  him  the  human  instincts  are  strengthened  and  quickened  by 
the  fine  force  of  his  poetic  genius.  His  imagination  lifts  him  out 


350  THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

of  his  blind  and  dead  materialism  into  conceptions  of  an  all-ani- 
mating life  in  nature,  and  a  power  even  creative  and  governing, 
which  are  out  of  all  keeping  with  the  doctrines  of  his  system. 
Such  conceptions  appear  even  in  the  names  which  he  has  for  the 
Democritan  atomi.  He  never  uses  atoms  from  the  Greek  <myioi, 
or  S.Top.0,  individual  things,  nor  always  primordia,  but  often  sem- 
ina  rerum,  genitalia  corpora,  —  terms  which  carry  with  them  the 
notion  of  a  creative  capacity.  So,  too,  he  says  that  the  first-be- 
ginnings must  have,  in  producings  things,  some  latent,  unseen 
power.  Thus  he  seems  to  be  striving  and  feeling  after  a  power  of 
a  diviner  quality,  even  a  Presence  and  a  Power  pervading  and  rul- 
ing the  whole  world.  Such  a  view  in  the  heathen  philosopher  was 
certainly  better  than  that  of  the  polytheistic  religion  of  his  own 
age.  It  may,  it  is  true,  be  called  no  better  than  the  one  I  have 
mentioned  as  put  forth  in  these  Christian  times  of  "  an  inscrutable 
Power  manifested  in  the  whole  process  of  evolution,"  but  I  think 
it  is  to  the  honor  of  Lucretius  that  his  view  is  at  least  quite  as 
good  as  this. 

We  may  now  pass  by  an  easy  transition  to  the  many  concep- 
tions of  nature  and  also  of  human  life  which  enrich  this  poem, 
and  which  disclose  the  writer's  poetic  genius.  Never  in  all  the 
manifold  processes  of  the  argument  through  which  Lucretius 
moves  does  the  genius  of  the  poet  altogether  desert  him.  He 
diffuses  its  genial  glow  through  his  most  speculative  thought,  his 
most  abstruse  reasoning.  But  most  of  all  does  it  appear  in  spe- 
cial passages,  digressions  into  which  the  poet  is  ever  sliding  and 
wandering,  as  pauses  and  resting-places  in  his  arguments,  like  the 
quiet  nooks  in  woods,  or  haunts  by  streams  or  by  the  seaside,  or 
solitary  mountain  spots  where  alike  in  his  life  and  his  poetry  he 
loved  so  much  to  linger. 

The  feeling  which  we  so  often  call  the  love  of  nature  we  find  in 
Latin  poetry  to  be  better  illustrated  and  more  fully  possessed  by 
Virgil  than  by  Lucretius  ;  but  Virgil  never  rose  to  that  tone  of 
philosophic  contemplation  of  nature's  aspects  and  life  which  was 
so  habitual  with  the  poetic  genius  and  manner  of  Lucretius.  As 
Virgil  was  a  diligent  and  in  some  ways  a  congenial  student  of 
Lucretius,  and  in  that  remarkable  passage  in  the  "  Georgics  " 
where  he  seems  to  be  comparing  himself  with  his  predecessor,  he 
looks  up  with  admiration  to  that  poet  who  was  happy  indeed  that 
he  could  discover  and  set  forth  the  causes  of  things  in  the  uni- 

1  Book  III.  475-494  :  "  Felix,  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas,"  etc. 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS.          351 

verse,  and  would  gladly  have  the  Muses  reveal  to  himself,  too,  as 
to  that  poet,  the  secrets  of  nature  ;  but  if  that  lofty  gift  be  denied 
him,  then  may  it  be  his  to  love  the  woods  and  the  running  streams 
in  the  valleys.  I  do  not  care  now  to  discuss  Mr.  Tyndall's  motive 
for  finding  a  close  to  his  Belfast  Address  in  that  noble  passage 
from  Wordsworth's  "  Tintern  Abbey  "  which  pictures  to  us  the 
modern  poet's  love  and  worship  of  nature.  But  I  sometimes  feel 
in  reading  Lucretius  that  he  was  touched  even  as  was  Wordsworth, 
in  his  selectest  lines,  by  the  presence  of  Nature ;  even  so  did  he 
give  himself  up  to  the  sense  and  the  utterance  of  her  majesty  and 
power,  her  sublimity  and  beauty ;  he  never  tired  of  holding  com- 
munion with  her  visible  forms,  or  of  pondering  and  piercing  the 
mystery  of  her  subtle,  all-pervading  life,  and  of  apprehending  and 
expressing  her  innermost  meaning.  How  finely  and  richly  does 
all  this  appear  in  the  very  opening  lines  of  his  poem,  where  he 
addresses  Venus  as  the  source  of  all  the  manifold  life  and  glory 
of  the  world.  Let  me  give  a  translation :  "  It  is  thou,  increase- 
giving  goddess,  —  Alma  Venus,  —  who  fillest  with  life  the  ship- 
carrying  seas,  the  corn-bearing  lands,  through  thee  every  living 
thing  after  its  kind  is  conceived  and  rises  up  to  the  light.  Before 
thee  and  thy  coming  flee  the  winds  and  the  clouds  ;  for  thee  earth 
manifold  puts  forth  her  sweet  flowers;  for  thee  the  propitious 
heavens  shine,  and  the  levels  of  the  sea  do  laugh.  With  every 
day  that  opens  anew,  the  fowls  of  the  air  show  signs  of  thee,  and 
the  wild  herds  bound  over  the  glad  pastures ;  yes,  throughout  all 
seas  and  mountains  and  rivers,  the  leafy  homes  of  birds  and  grassy 
plains,  all  living  things  feel  thy  reviving  power  and  follow  thee 
whither  thou  leadest  on." 

With  the  same  poetic  feeling  quite  as  much  as  with  the  phi- 
losopher's thought,  Lucretius  is  fond  of  contemplating  the  grand- 
est processes  of  nature  in  all  the  changing  phenomena  of  decay 
and  restoration  in  outward  things.  Plants  and  trees  are  ever 
growing  up  and  passing,  and  out  from  the  winter  of  their  death 
come  forth  into  ever  new  springs  and  summers  manifold  forms  of 
new  life  and  beauty.  And  far  beyond  these  visible  changes  his 
imagination  ranges  into  far-off  space,  and  contemplates  with  yet 
profounder  awe  entire  worlds  with  all  that  is  in  them  moving 
through  the  same  processes  of  change.  So,  too,  individual  objects 
and  scenes  in  nature  —  the  coming  of  day  and  of  the  spring,  the 
quiet  running  brooks  and  the  vast  rushing  sea,  the  rippling  of 
waves  by  the  shore,  the  heavens  in  all  their  aspects  of  storm  and 


352          THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

shine,  and  the  ever-changing  shapes  and  hues  of  their  clouds  — 
are  contemplated  with  the  observant  eye  and  the  quickened  and 
quickening  sense  of  the  poet.  But  everywhere  his  feeling  is 
drawn  to  things  which  reveal  most  fully  and  freshly  the  life  and 
power  of  nature,  and  his  descriptions  have  in  them  a  like  living 
active  quality.  How  life-like  as  a  picture  of  Homer  is  Aurora 
as  she  comes  !  "  When  the  dawn  first  sheds  fresh  light  over  the 
earth,  and  birds  of  every  kind,  flitting  over  the  pathless  woods, 
through  the  yielding  air,  fill  all  places  with  their  liquid  notes, 
how  suddenly  the  rising  sun  overspreads  and  clothes  all  the 
world  with  his  light !  "  Out  of  many  like  passages  which  I  had 
selected  from  the  Sixth  Book  let  me  give  only  one  which  describes 
the  movements  of  clouds.  "  Observe  when  the  winds  carry  the 
mountain-like  towering  clouds  through  the  air  on  the  mountain 
sides,  and  piled  one  above  the  other  in  rest,  the  winds  being 
buried  in  calm,  then  you  shall  be  able  to  observe  their  huge 
masses,  caverns  as  it  were,  of  hanging  rocks.  And  when  on  the 
gathering  of  a  storm  the  winds  have  filled  all  these,  how  they 
chafe  and  bluster  in  their  dens  like  wild  beasts  ;  how  they  growl 
through  the  clouds,  and,  bent  upon  finding  their  way  out,  how 
they  whirl  together  their  fire  out  of  the  clouds,  and  gather  them 
together  and  roll  the  flame  in  their  hollow  furnaces,  till  at  last 
they  burst  and  shine  forth  in  their  forked  lightning  flashes." 

The  mystery  of  man's  being  and  destiny  he  feels  as  powerfully 
as  the  mystery  of  nature,  and  represents  it  in  like  poetic  manner, 
but  with  no  less  variety  and  freshness.  The  tone  of  his  descrip- 
tion is  never  morbid  or  austere,  but  it  is  grave  and  even  solemn. 
Materialist  as  he  was,  he  never  betrays  the  frivolity  and  flippancy 
of  some  modern  materialistic  writers.  Nor  is  there  aught  in  his 
poetry  that  is  akin  to  a  sensual  and  licentious  materialism.  In 
this  respect,  nor  in  this  alone,  it  seems  to  me  that  Tennyson's 
poem  on  "  Lucretius  "  fails  to  represent  aright  his  subject.  It  is 
powerfully  conceived,  and  like  everything  that  Tennyson  writes 
is  executed  with  artistic  finish  of  style.  But  the  conception,  em- 
bodying as  it  does  the  incredible  story  of  his  madness  and  suicide, 
and  also  some  added  elements  of  empty  tradition,  is  not  the  con- 
ception of  the  Lucretius  of  the  poem,  and  I  think  not  of  the  real 
Lucretius.  Besides,  it  introduces  sensual  and  degrading  thoughts 
and  fancies,  which  nowhere  appear  in  the  poem ;  and  the  poem 
is,  after  all,  the  sole  biography  we  have  of  the  man.  Tennyson's 
poem  makes  upon  a  student  of  Lucretius  a  disturbed  and  discord- 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS.  353 

ant  impression.  That  awful  image  of  the  philosophic  poet  tearing 
passion  to  tatters  under  the  maddening  influence  of  a  love-philtre, 
and  at  last  gasping  and  dying  in  horrid  agonies,  and  an  imaginary 
wife  Lucilia  standing  there  the  while  wringing  her  hands  in  woe 
over  the  work  of  a  fatuous  jealousy,  —  it  is  all  a  wild  fiction  just 
as  unworthy  as  it  is  elaborate.  There  is  nothing  in  the  Lucretius 
of  the  poem  that  savors  aught  of  all  this.  He  writes  of  the  passion 
of  love  and  of  its  relations  in  his  Fourth  Book,  but  in  a  love 
which  is  scientific  and  didactic,  never  sensual  and  licentious. 
Here  and  wherever  he  touches  and  delineates  human  life  it  is 
with  a  sober  and  thoughtful  tone.  Not  more  thoughtful  in  his 
contemplative  views  of  life  is  Young  himself  in  our  English 
poetry  ;  the  modern  poet  is  more  sombre,  and  as  inferior  in  sus- 
tained elevation  of  feeling  as  he  is  in  refinement  of  taste.  Lucre- 
tius entered  with  a  truly  human  sympathy  into  all  that  is  noble  and 
all  that  is  depressing  in  human  life.  Whatever  is  cheerful  and 
whatever  is  sad,  all  in  it  that  moves  admiration  and  joy,  or  pity 
and  grief,  men's  hopes  in  all  their  glow  of  expectation  and  in  their 
bitterness  of  disappointment,  the  fears  and  ills  that  men  bring 
upon  themselves,  or  which  their  mortal  destiny  brings  upon  them. 
Their  follies  and  weaknesses  never  move  him  to  mirth  or  ridicule, 
though  sometimes  to  a  disturbed  and  indignant  tone  that  reminds 
one  of  the  satire  of  Juvenal.  Not  without  a  sense  of  human  great- 
ness and  dignity  does  he  look  upon  the  fasces  and  purple  robe 
of  civil  power  and  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war,  but  with 
dimmed  eyes  he  sees  the  scenes  of  faction  and  bloodshed,  the  mis- 
erable strifes  of  worldly  ambition  and  all  its  corroding  cares  and 
fears,  the  rush  and  tumult  of  human  passions  and  lusts  which 
make  men  destructive  foes  to  one  another  and  foes  to  themselves. 
And  with  a  true  tenderness  of  pathos  he  feels  and  describes  the 
real  ills  of  man's  feeble  race  from  the  first  wail  of  the  infant  as  he 
comes  into  life  to  the  funeral  knell  that  tolls  the  going  down  to  the 
grave.  In  one  brief  passage  he  thus  transforms  by  a  single  crea- 
tive touch  his  ever-recurring  primordial  law  into  a  most  impres- 
sive image  of  this  ever-recurring  universal  lot  of  man.  "  Here, 
too,"  he  says,  "  goes  on  ever  with  even  issue  the  war  of  the  first- 
beginnings  ;  now  here,  now  there,  the  vital  elements  overcome 
and  are  overcome  in  turn  ;  with  the  funeral  lament  is  mingled 
the  cry  of  children  as  they  first  come  to  the  light ;  and  no  night 
has  ever  followed  day,  nor  day  followed  night,  which  has  not  heard 
sickly  infants'  cries  blended  with  the  lamentations  that  follow 


354  THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS. 

death  and  the  black  burial  train."  And  all  his  solemnity  of  feel- 
ing, awakened  by  these  vicissitudes  of  human  destiny,  all  his 
sympathy  with  whatever  is  sweet  and  endearing  in  affection  and 
bright  in  prosperity  or  dark  in  adversity,  with  the  natural  ills  men 
must  bear  and  the  worse  unnatural  ills  they  suffer  through  a  bad 
heart  and  life,  —  all  these  appear  in  their  fullness  just  when  he  has 
taught  materiality  of  the  soul,  and  is  dwelling  upon  the  thought 
of  an  eternal  death.  Here  he  teaches  lessons  of  expostulation 
with  men's  anxieties  and  fears,  of  solace  for  their  grief,  of  a  stead- 
fast and  heroic  fortitude  and  submission  amidst  inevitable  trials ; 
and  out  of  his  very  unbelief  in  future  retributions  he  preaches  his 
doctrine  of  stern  retributions  of  the  present ;  and  all  this  resting 
on  the  view  of  entire  unconsciousness  in  death,  and  so  of  death  not 
to  be  feared  or  deplored.  As  to  your  worst  fears  of  the  future, 
he  says,  they  should  rather  be  fears  for  the  present.  You  are 
frighted  by  the  tales  of  Tantalus  and  Tityos,  of  Sisyphus,  of 
Ixion,  of  Cerberus  and  the  Furies,  and  all  else  that  makes  up  the 
horrors  of  Acheron's  deep.  The  awful  things  these  all  teach  do 
exist,  but  they  exist  in  this  life ;  now  and  here  in  bad  men's  hearts 
and  lives.  The  hell  is  here  on  earth  —  in  the  life  of  fools. 

"  Hie  Acherusia  fit  stultorum  denique  vita." 

But  with  the  truest  pathos  he  touches  the  fears  men  have  of 
death  robbing  them  of  the  good  things  of  life.  One  says  to  him- 
self, "  Soon  thy  glad  house  shall  no  more  welcome  thee  home,  nor 
virtuous  wife  and  sweet  children  run  to  snatch  thy  kisses  and 
touch  thy  heart  with  sweet  delight.  Soon  shall  thy  fortune  no 
more  flourish,  or  thou  be  a  safeguard  to  thine  own.  One  disas- 
trous day  has  taken  from  thee,  luckless  man,  all  these  many  prizes 
of  life."  How  finely  has  Gray  in  his  "Elegy  "  turned  these  lines. 
Familiar  as  the  stanza  is,  let  me  put  it  by  the  side  of  the  version 
which  I  have  given  in  prose :  — 

"  For  them  no  more  the  blazing  hearth  shall  burn, 

Or  busy  housewife  ply  her  evening  care  ; 
No  children  run  to  lisp  their  sire's  return, 
Or  climb  his  knees  the  envied  kiss  to  share." 

And  how  earnestly  does  he  rally  all  the  lighter  and  sicklier  appre- 
hensions against  the  coming  of  the  inevitable  hour.  "  Men  say, 
with  cup  in  hand  and  garland  on  their  head,  Enjoy  the  pass- 
ing moment ;  soon  it  will  be  gone  and  come  no  more.  Folly 
indeed  !  as  if  after  death  you  could  crave  aught  of  all  this.  No 
one  wakes  up  to  crave  anything,  when  once  the  chill  pause  of  life 


THE  THEORY  OF  LUCRETIUS.  355 

is  come."  "  Nature  herself  might  on  this  wise  rally  men's  morbid 
laments  :  Why  dread  death  if  your  life  has  been  happy  ?  Why  not 
depart  from  the  banquet  like  a  satisfied  guest  ?  If  not,  then  why 
not  end  your  troubles  ?  And  to  an  old  man  she  might  say,  Why 
fear  now  and  moan  ?  I  have  nothing  new  to  give,  if  thou  wert 
to  live  here  forever.  A  truce,  then,  with  your  idle  tears."  "  And 
this  remember,  too,  vain  man,  and  be  content:  Good  men  have 
died  before  you,  far,  far  better  than  thou,  even  the  greatest  and 
the  best  —  the  good  Ancus,  Scipio,  and  Homer,  and  Democritus, 
aye,  and  Epicurus  as  well.  Go,  then,  thy  way,  as  all  before  thee  ; 
for  one  thing  will  ever  rise  out  of  another ;  to  none  is  life  given  in 
fee-simple,  to  all  in  right  of  use." 

But,  hopeless  of  the  future  as  the  poet's  doctrine  is,  hopeless 
of  best  and  dearest  of  human  hopes,  he  is  true  to  the  last  to  his 
theme  and  his  task  —  he  is  true  to  the  philosophic  impulse  to  in- 
quire, and  to  know,  and  to  rest  quiet  and  unmoved  in  the  repose  of 
knowledge.  In  this  unspeakably  real  scene  of  human  life,  where 
individuals  and  generations  are  ever  coming  and  going,  passing 
and  repassing,  and  passing  away,  he  would  have  each  man  leaving 
all  else,  study  to  know  the  nature  of  things,  since  the  thing  at 
stake  is  the  condition,  not  of  one  hour,  but  for  eternity. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

WRITTEN  FOR  THE  FRIDAY  CLUB,  JANUARY  14,  1876,  AND   PRINTED 
IN   THE   "BAPTIST  QUARTERLY." 

THE  comparative  method  of  study  which  has  achieved  such 
great  discoveries  in  its  own  province  of  language  is  winning  like 
results  in  mythology,  history,  politics,  and  religion.  It  is  truly 
marvelous  how  it  carries  light  wherever  it  goes,  and  illumines 
whatever  it  reaches ;  how  it  brings  near  to  us  the  far  distant,  and 
binds  to  the  immediate  present  the  primeval  past ;  how  it  joins  in 
friendliest  union  the  most  diverse  elements  of  speech,  race,  gov- 
ernment, and  society,  and  so  by  its  touch  makes  the  whole  world 
kin.  In  its  progress  it  reveals  to  us  the  broad  and  goodly  view 
not  only  of  languages  united  by  closest  family  ties,  which  yet  be- 
long to  nations  parted  hemispheres  asunder,  but  also  of  the  nations 
that  speak  them  as  forming  one  brotherhood  and  sharing  a  com- 
mon heritage  of  civilization.  It  takes  us  to  that  far-off  primeval 
Aryan  home  where  the  forefathers  of  these  nations  were  one  great 
family,  a  yet  unbroken  household,  living  as  one  people,  speaking 
one  language,  subject  to  one  rule,  tilling  the  same  fields,  plying 
the  same  arts,  and  looking  up  to  the  same  bending  and  protecting 
skies,  and  there  seeing  and  worshiping  one  Supreme  Being  as  the 
God  of  light,  as  Father  in  heaven.  We  may  look  for  grander 
results  to  be  achieved  from  the  applications  of  this  comprehensive 
method  of  study.  As  we  think  of  its  onward  career  we  seem  to 
see  its  studious  followers  in  brilliant  succession,  even  as  the  run- 
ners in  the  ancient  torch-race,  handing  along  the  lights  of  science 
by  the  successive  stages  of  their  course  of  research,  the  eyes  and 
energies  of  all  bent  upon  the  ultimate  goal  —  the  knowledge  of 
one  united  race,  of  the  vast  and  varied  interests  of  our  common 
humanity.  It  is  indeed  the  universal  human  interest  inspired  by 
this  method  of  study  that  makes  at  once  its  worth  and  its  charm, 
and  gives  it  a  hold  upon  all  thoughtful  minds  like  the  spell  of  a 
fascination.  And  as  it  is  in  the  province  of  language,  in  which  it 
became  first  established,  we  have  in  its  results  a  quite  new  proof 
of  the  value  and  function  of  speech,  of  the  spoken  and  the  written 


THE  LIFE   AND   TEACHINGS   OF  SOPHOCLES.  357 

word,  as  the  revealer  of  human  thought  and  history  ;  and  we  may 
claim  for  philological  studies  as  a  whole  what  has  been  long  ac- 
corded to  the  study  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  tongues,  that  they 
are  the  true  Jfumaniora,  truly  humane  and  humanizing  studies, 
counting  nothing  foreign  to  themselves  that  belongs  to  humanity, 
Jiumani  nihil  a  se  alienum.  In  nothing  do  these  many-voiced 
studies  so  powerfully  address  the  human  heart  as  in  what  they 
reveal  to  us  of  the  religions  of  the  different  nations  of  the  world, 
or  of  the  religion  of  some  one  nation  which  has  borne  a  ruling 
part  in  its  history.  Here  they  have  to  do  with  what  is  most  cen- 
tral and  distinctive  in  man,  that  religious  nature  by  virtue  of 
which,  as  it  was  said  in  an  old  Aryan  word,  he  is  bidden  to  "  look 
heavenward,"  or,  as  we  have  it  in  more  significant  Semitic  speech, 
"  is  able  to  lift  up  his  face  to  God  and  have  his  delight  in  the 
Almighty."  It  is  also  one  of  the  many  services  rendered  by  com- 
parative to  classical  philology  that  inquiries  into  the  religions  of 
classical  antiquity  are  now  conducted  on  a  wider  basis  of  truth 
and  reason,  and  with  a  larger  intelligence  and  charity.  To  rele- 
gate the  Greek  and  Roman  religions  to  the  realm  of  superstition 
and  falsehood,  and  to  conceive  of  those  nations  themselves,  who 
found  and  expressed  in  those  religions  their  best  life  for  long  gen- 
erations, as  being  before  the  advent  of  Christianity  mere  outcasts 
and  castaways,  with  no  knowledge  of  God  or  hope  of  immortality 
—  these  views  and  such  views  as  these  it  would  now  be  simply 
impossible  to  entertain.  We  might  as  well  go  back  to  the  notion 
that  Greek  and  Latin  were  somehow  developed  out  of  Hebrew, 
or  indeed  that  Hebrew  was  the  original  language  of  mankind. 
When  we  now  enumerate  the  gifts  bestowed  upon  us  by  those 
foremost  nations  in  their  letters,  art,  and  philosophy,  in  their 
dominion  and  law,  and  remember  that  the  Greeks  by  their  speech, 
and  the  Romans  by  their  rule,  handed  down  to  us  a  yet  richer 
gift,  their  own  only  by  adoption,  the  gift  of  the  Christian  religion, 
then  may  we  contemplate  their  religions,  too,  as  having  a  place  in 
the  providential  ordering  of  the  world,  as  preparatory  to  the  true 
and  the  universal  religion,  and  as  enabling  them  in  the  fullness  of 
time  to  receive  this  religion  themselves,  and  to  bequeath  it  to  all 
after  times  and  peoples. 

In  a  former  essay  I  endeavored  to  set  forth  the  religion  of 
the  Greeks  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  from  their  mythical  heroic 
age  in  the  poetry  of  Homer.  I  wish  now  to  present  some  aspects 
of  that  religion  in  the  form  into  which  it  had  passed  in  the 


358  THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

brightest  historic  times  of  Greece,  as  it  was  taught  and  inter- 
preted by  Sophocles,  the  poet  of  devoutest  mind  and  of  most 
harmonious  genius  and  culture  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  and  also  the 
artist  poet  of  Attic  tragedy,  which  was  at  once  the  ministry  of 
the  Greek  faith  and  the  sovereign  crown  of  the  Grecian  Muse. 
The  Greek  gave  always  his  best  and  his  greatest  to  his  religion, 
to  his  conception  of  spiritual  existence  and  of  that  unseen,  aw- 
ful Power  that  ruled  supreme  in  it  all,  as  well  as  in  all  the  world 
of  nature  and  the  life  of  man ;  and  nowhere  did  he  give  it  in 
such  large  and  costly  store  as  in  the  gifts  of  his  art,  in  those  ex- 
quisite revelations  of  beauty  and  grandeur  which  have  ever  been 
and  will  never  cease  to  be  the  marvel  and  the  study  of  every  age. 
Athenian  art  were  all  vacant  and  meaningless  without  the  presence 
and  interpretation  of  religious  ideas.  It  was  from  these  came 
the  soul  of  its  inspiration,  these  bodied  forth  its  manifold  forms. 
The  artists  themselves  and  their  enlightened  patron,  the  citizen 
sovereign  of  Athens,  were  all  the  willing  servants  and  ministers 
of  religion.  Their  minds  habitually  dwelt  in  the  yet  cherished 
traditions  of  the  national  faith,  and  these  they  sought  to  repro- 
duce, but  purified  and  informed  with  a  truer  meaning,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  advanced  spirit  of  their  age.  Through  their  con- 
trolling influence  it  was  religion  that  gave  new  consecration  to 
recovered  freedom  and  rekindled  patriotism,  new  sanction  and  im- 
pulse to  the  fulfillment  of  vows,  and  to  the  offering  of  dedication 
gifts  to  commemorate  recent  national  triumphs  and  adorn  afresh 
places  made  sacred  by  the  achievements  of  earlier  times.  Of 
the  exalted  influence  and  rank  of  religion  in  all  that  world  of 
Attic  art  we  have  the  best  symbol  and  witness  in  the  Phidias 
statue  of  Athene  Promachos,  that  masterpiece  of  painting,  archi- 
tecture, and  sculpture  combined,  reared  up  under  the  open  sky 
and  into  the  pure  air  of  Athens,  far  above  all  its  grand  assem- 
blage of  works  of  art,  crowning  the  Acropolis  itself,  the  sanctuary 
of  Athenian  religion,  ever  looking  down  upon  the  city  she  had 
always  protected,  ever  looked  up  to  by  its  citizens  as  the  goddess 
of  the  Athenians'  home.  Of  this  religion,  to  which  all  Athe- 
nian art  ministered,  Sophocles  was  himself  a  chosen  minister,  in  a 
form  of  Greek  poetry,  which,  as  I  have  said,  was  in  its  uses  a 
religious  one ;  he  was  consecrated  to  its  service  by  the  Muse  of 
Attic  tragedy ;  in  the  tragic  drama  he  was  during  all  his  life  the 
religious  teacher  of  the  Athenian  people.  Remote  as  we  are 
from  that  ancient  Greek  life,  and  prepossessed  with  the  ideas  of 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES.  359 

the  modern  drama,  we  are  not  always  apt  to  discern  this  character 
of  the  Attic  tragedy.  That  tragedy  was  in  its  origin  a  religious 
solemnity,  and  was  true  to  that  origin  during  all  its  history ;  the 
play  was  an  element  of  public  worship,  the  building  in  which  it 
was  represented  was  a  temple,  and  its  centre  appropriated  to  an 
altar ;  all  who  took  part  in  the  representation  were  devoted  to  a 
divine  service ;  the  stage  itself  was  the  national  pulpit,  our  word, 
indeed,  being  the  Latin  name  for  it ;  the  poet  was  the  preacher, 
and  his  poem  was  in  truth  a  sermon  designed  for  the  religious 
instruction  of  the  people.  How  well  does  the  writer  remember 
the  first  living  impression  he  received  of  this  character  of  Greek 
tragedy,  when  years  ago,  in  his  student-life  at  Berlin,  it  was  his 
fortune  to  see  the  "  Antigone  "  exhibited,  and  then  for  the  first 
time,  at  the  Royal  Theatre.  This  representation  of  a  Greek  play 
on  the  German  stage  was  the  idea  of  the  late  Prussian  king,  Fred- 
erick William  IV.,  a  sovereign  who  in  intellectual  gifts  and  in 
liberal  patronage  of  letters  and  art  was  not  unlike  Pericles  him- 
self. He  laid  under  contribution  all  the  resources  of  his  capital 
in  learning  and  scholarship  and  musical  genius  for  the  transla- 
tion of  the  play  and  the  composition  of  the  choral  music,  and  in 
histrionic  and  decorative  talent  for  its  exhibition  with  all  fitting 
appointments  of  acting,  scenery,  and  costume.  It  was  an  impos- 
ing spectacle  to  behold.  There  was  a  wealth  of  Mendelssohn  mu- 
sic to  delight  the  ear,  and  yet  those  sights  and  sounds  have  long 
since  quite  faded  from  the  mind  ;  but  the  moral  impression  which 
the  drama  made  by  the  truth  it  uttered,  as  it  moved  in  solemn 
march  through  the  action,  lingers  yet  fresh  in  the  memory,  an 
abiding  possession.  Even  now  there  seems  to  be  seen  that  stately 
figure  of  Antigone,  and  her  voice  seems  to  be  heard  pronouncing 
her  faith  "  in  the  unwritten  and  unchanging  laws  of  God,"  and 
her  purpose  to  abide  by  that  faith  even  unto  death.  When  she 
appealed  to  those  unwritten  divine  laws  as  above  Creon,  above  all 
human  decrees,  what  a  noble  utterance  was  that  which  rang  out 
so  clear  and  commanding  :  — 

"  They  are  not  of  to-day  nor  yesterday, 
But  live  forever,  nor  can  man  assign 
When  first  they  sprang  to  being.     Not  through  fear 
Of  any  man's  resolve  was  I  prepared 
Before  the  gods  to  bear  the  penalty 
Of  sinning  against  these." 

It  was  the  appointed  and  the  chosen  mission  of  Sophocles  to 


360          THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

fasten  such  moral  impressions  as  these  in  men's  minds,  as  through 
his  dramas  he  addressed  his  countrymen,  assembled  by  thousands 
in  the  great  theatre  of  Dionysus ;  yes,  and  as  he  has  ever  since 
addressed,  on  the  vast  theatre  of  the  world,  all  the  succeeding 
generations  of  men  through  the  perpetual  beneficent  influence  of 
good  letters.  And  how  richly  was  he  furnished  for  his  mission 
by  nature  and  education,  and  by  all  fortunate  environment  of 
time  and  place  and  circumstance.  We  have  a  brief  biography  of 
him  in  Greek  by  an  anonymous  writer,  which  contains  a  very 
significant  sentence  :  "  Sophocles  was  dear  to  the  gods  as  no  one 
else ; "  ^€0^1X175,  Horace's  Dis  carus,  one  word,  but  a  choice  one, 
and  it  strikes  the  key-note  of  all  the  prolonged  harmonies  of  his 
poetic  life.  The  word  was  doubtless  meant  to  express  his  sense  of 
reverence  and  piety,  by  which  he  was  indeed  highly  favored,  as 
the  best  of  all  the  good  things  which  were  his,  and  which  by 
it  were  made  good  things  to  others.  But  we  may  take  the  word 
in  a  larger  sense.  Highly  favored  he  was  in  his  poetic  genius, 
Melpomene  smiling  upon  him  at  his  birth,  in  the  sweetness  and 
serene  calmness  of  his  nature,  and  his  fine  aptitudes  for  all  those 
qualities  and  accomplishments  of  person,  manners,  and  mind 
which  with  the  Greek  entered  into  the  ideal  of  manhood.  Highly 
favored,  too,  in  the  fortunate  event  when  these  gifts,  then  in  their 
early  spring,  first  brought  him  into  public  notice.  He  was  sixteen 
years  of  age  when  the  great  victory  of  Salamis  was  won  ;  and  on 
the  day  of  its  celebration  he  was  chosen  to  lead  the  chorus  in 
song  and  dance,  as  moving  around  the  trophy  they  chanted  the 
battle-hymn  in  gratitude  to  the  gods  for  the  nation's  triumph. 
This  was  a  select  honor  for  an  Athenian  to  win  in  the  early  years 
of  his  education ;  and  the  youthful  Sophocles  had  won  it  by  the 
distinction  he  had  gained  in  the  pursuits  of  those  years.  Music 
and  gymnastics,  in  each  of  which  he  had  carried  off  the  garland 
prize,  had  given  him  skill  in  song  and  lyre,  and  had  rounded  to 
symmetry  of  form  a  person  of  native  beauty  and  grace  ;  and  his 
studies  in  the  epic  and  lyric  poets  had  already  touched  and  quick- 
ened the  susceptibilities  of  his  aesthetic  nature,  and  kindled  a  gen- 
erous love  of  excellence  in  all  that  is  good  and  noble  in  character 
and  action.  Among  the  Fragments1  of  his  lost  poems  one  has 
been  preserved,  which  perhaps  embodies  his  own  experience  of 
those  years :  — 

1  Fragm.  779  ;  referred  to  and  quoted  by  Professor  Plumptre  in  his  Life  and 
Writings  of  Sophocles. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES.  361 

"  Since  we  have  rightly  made  our  prayer  to  God, 
Now  let  us  go,  my  children,  to  the  schools 
Where  wise  men  teach,  and  learn  the  Muses'  arts, 
And  ever,  day  by  day,  take  one  step  on, 
Till  we  gain  power  to  study  nobler  things." 

Twelve  years  later  came  a  greater  day  in  Sophocles'  life,  when 
that  early  promise,  now  amply  increased,  was  to  come  to  its  first 
fulfillment.  It  was  the  great  Dionysia  of  the  year  468,  and  a 
dramatic  contest  of  unparalleled  interest  was  to  take  place.  Soph- 
ocles, then  in  his  twenty-seventh  year,  was  to  appear  for  the  first 
time  as  a  tragic  poet,  and  in  competition  with  -ZEschylus,  who  had 
been  the  master  of  the  Athenian  stage  for  an  entire  generation. 
In  anticipation  of  the  approaching  contest,  public  expectation  had 
been  wrought  up  to  its  highest  pitch,  and  party  feeling  ran  high 
through  the  city,  some  eager  for  a  new  success  of  their  old  favor- 
ite, and  others  desiring  a  maiden  triumph  for  the  young  aspirant, 
already  known  as  a  gifted  poet.  The  archon,  who  had  not  yet 
appointed  the  judges  of  the  contest,  in  his  fear  that  any  arbiters 
appointed  in  the  usual  way  would  fail  to  unite  the  people  in  their 
decision,  took,  in  a  happy  moment,  the  bold  step  of  electing  a 
wholly  new  tribunal,  whose  decision  he  knew  would  carry  all  the 
people.  It  so  happened  that  Cimon  and  his  nine  colleagues  —  the 
ten  representing,  as  also  the  dramatic  judges  always  did,  the  ten 
tribes  —  had  just  come  back  from  a  sacred  mission  to  Scyros,  bring- 
ing with  them  the  bones  of  Theseus,  to  lay  them  in  Attic  soil. 
They  had  come  straight  from  the  Piraeus  to  the  Theatre  of 
Dionysus,  and  at  the  altar  in  the  orchestra  were  making  their 
thank-offering  for  the  success  of  their  mission.  The  archon  retains 
them  after  their  service  was  over,  appoints  them  the  judges,  ad- 
ministers the  oath,  and  puts  them  in  the  judges'  seats,  amidst  the 
acclamations  of  the  assembled  citizens.  By  their  votes  the  prize 
was  adjudged  to  Sophocles ;  and  so  on  that  day  they  bade  the  ris- 
ing poet  be  adorned  with  his  first  ivy  crown — hedera  crescentem 
ornate  poetam.  This  triumph,  however,  of  Sophocles,  never 
caused  any  abiding  unfriendly  feeling  between  the  older  and  the 
younger  dramatist.  On  the  contrary,  the  relation  of  Sophocles  to 
^schylus  was  by  far  the  most  important  of  all  the  influences  of 
time  and  circumstance  which  promoted  his  growth  and  culture  as 
a  tragic  writer.  It  was  much  that  he  was  born  into  the  world 
with  the  nascent  fortunes  of  liberated  Greece,  and  that  his  youth 
was  reared  and  formed  when  these  fortunes  were  firmly  estab- 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

lished ;  it  was  much  that  when  he  had  reached  the  full  maturity  of 
his  powers  he  lived  and  labored  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  and,  be- 
sides enjoying  the  friendship  of  that  gifted  orator  and  statesman, 
received  into  himself  all  the  inspiring  influence  of  that  era  of  in- 
tellectual activity  marked  and  known  by  that  name.  But  these 
advantages  he  had  in  common  with  all  the  eminent  men  of  that 
time ;  for  himself  in  his  own  art,  in  preparation  for  it,  and  in  all 
its  after  exercise,  it  was  his  peculiar  felicity  that  he  had  ^Eschylus 
for  his  predecessor,  as  a  model  to  study  and  imitate  in  all  noble 
conception  and  execution,  as  a  teacher  at  whose  feet  he  might 
dutifully  sit,  whom  he  honored  and  venerated  as  an  elder  master, 
so  long  as  that  master  lived,  and  whose  memory  he  cherished  with 
filial  affection  to  the  end  of  his  own  long  life.  There  is  a  strange 
passage  in  a  play  of  Aristophanes,  that  brilliant  genius  of  the  old 
Attic  comedy,  which  contains,  where  you  might  least  expect  it,  a 
discriminating  testimony  to  the  character  of  Sophocles,  and  his 
relations  to  ^Eschylus.  It  is  in  the  play  of  the  "  Frogs,"  which 
was  exhibited  just  after  the  death  of  Sophocles,  Euripides  having 
died  the  year  before,  and  ^Eschylus  many  years  earlier.  So  the 
great  trio  were  all  gone,  and  the  future  of  Attic  tragedy  seemed 
dark.  The  comic  poet  introduces  Dionysus  telling  of  a  descent 
he  had  made  to  Hades,  to  bring  back  to  earth,  even  as  Orpheus 
went  in  quest  of  his  lost  Eurydice,  the  best  tragic  poet  he  could 
find.  He  says  that  a  noisy  contest  was  going  on  there,  a  dramatic 
one,  too.  ^Eschylus  had  long  held  the  laureate  place  of  tragedy ; 
but  Euripides,  who  had  recently  come,  was  winning  favor  by  his 
newer  style,  and  there  was  some  chance  of  his  getting  the  tragic 
throne.  But  some  one  asks  in  the  play,1  "  But  how  was  it  with 
Sophocles  ;  did  he  put  in  no  claim  to  the  throne  ?  "  "  Oh  no,  not 
he,"  was  the  reply ;  "  but  as  soon  as  he  came  down,  he  kissed 
^Eschylus,  and  slid  his  right  hand  into  his,  and  JEschylus  at  once 
would  have  ceded  the  throne  to  him ;  but  Sophocles  wanted  only 
to  be  a  looker-on ;  and  if  .^Eschylus  should  win,  he  would  stay 
where  he  was ;  but  if  not,  he  said  he  would  himself  enter  the  lists 
with  Euripides."  In  this  comic  conceit,  Aristophanes  reveals  to 
us  not  only  the  sweetness  of  Sophocles'  disposition,  but  also  his 
place  in  Attic  tragedy,  and  his  relation  to  ^Eschylus.  He  was  in 
the  eleventh  year  of  his  age  when  ^Eschylus  won  his  first  prize ; 
he  had  reached  his  twenty-third  year  when  ^Eschylus  produced  the 
great  drama  of  the  "Persse,"  that  one  of  his  only  two  historic  plays 
1  Line  786,  and  following,  Dindorf 's  ed.,  Paris,  1839. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES.  363 

which  set  upon  the  Athenian  stage  that  great  event  in  the  strug- 
gle between  Europe  and  Asia,  the  rout  of  Xerxes  and  the  down- 
fall of  the  Persian  power.  During  all  this  interval  it  was  his,  in 
common  with  all  Athens,  to  see  and  hear  the  tragedies  which  the 
great  dramatist  exhibited  at  the  successive  annual  festivals ;  and 
what  an  imaginative  study  of  education  and  culture  to  think  of 
that  genial  Athenian  youth  looking  on  from  some  chosen  place  in 
the  vast  assembly,  and  following  those  dramas  through  all  their 
mighty  movements  of  action,  and  searching  and  piercing  into  all 
their  hidden  and  intricate  springs  in  poetic  and  tragic  art,  feed- 
ing soul  and  mind  with  their  lofty  conceptions  and  lessons  of  wis- 
dom and  truth,  inflamed  all  the  while  by  their  excellence,  and 
stirred  with  high  hopes  of  coming,  by  and  by,  to  be  himself  a 
great  poet,  and  famous  to  all  ages.  Sophocles  was  heir  direct  to 
all  that  ./Eschylus  wrought  out  for  the  Attic  stage,  to  the  improve- 
ments he  introduced  into  its  inner  economy  as  well  as  its  outward 
conduct,  and  especially  the  religious  teaching  with  which  he  in- 
formed it,  in  his  new  and  nobler  treatment  of  the  myths  and  tra- 
ditions from  which  its  chief  materials  were  always  drawn.  This 
teaching  Sophocles  took  up  into  his  own,  following  on  still  farther 
in  the  path  opened  by  JEschylus  as  a  reformer  of  the  national 
faith ;  he  was  a  follower  and  a  pupil,  but  an  independent  one, 
conceiving  and  working  according  to  his  own  nature,  a  nature  less 
grand  and  majestic,  but  certainly  more  calm  and  sustained,  and 
more  harmonious  in  itself  and  all  its  development,  ^schylus  is 
described  by  scholars 1  who  know  him  best  as  a  sublime  genius, 
partaking  of  the  tone  and  quality  of  that  superhuman  and  heroic 
realm  he  always  dwelt  in,  amid  beings  and  scenes  which  it  is  hard 
for  ordinary  mortals  to  reach  —  a  warlike  and  overwhelming  na- 
ture, dealing  with  the  conflicts  of  men  and  gods  with  one  another 
and  with  destiny,  grappling  and  closing,  in  the  drama  of  fiction, 
with  the  stout  problems  of  fate  and  free-will,  with  the  same  impet- 
uous and  victorious  force  as  in  the  drama  of  life  he  encountered 
and  vanquished  the  Persians  at  Marathon  and  Salamis.  But  in 
reading  Sophocles  we  seem  to  get  near  to  the  writer,  and  enter 
into  a  human  sympathy  with  him ;  and  yet  he  draws  his  subjects 
from  the  same  mythic  realm,  and  in  his  interpretation  of  its  life 
deals  with  the  same  complex  and  perplexing  conditions  of  man's 
spiritual  being  and  destiny.  His  art  is  no  less  ideal ;  his  charac- 

1  Especially  by  Dronke  in  Jahrbiicher  fur  Philologie,  4th  Suppl.  Band,  pp.  1- 
100. 


364          THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

ters,  too,  are  ideal ;  but  they  are  human ;  though  of  a  divine  kin- 
ship, they  yet  are  living  and  moving  upon  the  earth,  our  habita- 
tion ;  ever  under  the  control  of  a  divine  government,  and  subject 
to  its  eternal  laws,  but  yet  freely  acting  out  of  human  feelings, 
impulses,  and  motives.  Sophocles  is  ever  so  quiet  and  serenely 
thoughtful,  harmonizing  so  far  as  he  may  all  opposing  and  jarring 
forces,  and  when  he  cannot  go  farther,  sure  in  his  faith  that  there 
is  a  remoter  concord  somewhere,  if  only  man  had  the  spiritual 
insight  and  sensibility  to  see  and  feel  it.  In  Sophocles,  indeed, 
we  are  aware  of  the  presence,  not  so  much  of  a  sharp  intellectual 
apprehension,  which  seeks  to  fix  in  precise  forms  the  knowledge 
wrung  from  wrestling  thought,  but  rather  of  the  undimmed  inner 
sense,1  which  sees  and  feels  the  truth  as  by  immediate  intuition. 
We  may  apply  to  him  words  of  his  own,  left  in  one  of  his  brief 
Fragments :  — 

"  A  heart  of  mildness,  full  of  good  intent, 
Far  sooner  than  acuteness  will  the  truth  behold." 

And  then  what  a  perfection  of  art  in  all  his  unfolding  and  ex- 
pression of  the  truth  he  has  thus  seen !  We  are  craving  in  these 
modern  Christian  days  the  fusion  and  union  of  religion  and  cul- 
ture ;  and  how  we  miss  it  often  in  the  best  teaching  of  the  pen 
and  of  the  voice,  culture  lacking  the  inspiration  of  religion,  and 
religion  failing  to  take  up  into  itself  and  master  the  resources  of 
culture.  In  "  Sophocles,"  the  great  name  of  the  pulpit  of  the 
Attic  drama,  we  find  a  well-nigh  perfect  combination  of  art  and 
religion,  of  the  best  culture  of  his  age  and  its  best  religious  ideas. 
The  wonder  is  that  the  thousands  of  the  Athenian  demos  had 
risen  to  such  a  high  plane  of  culture  themselves  that  they  could 
fully  appreciate  these  dramas,  and  sit  and  listen  to  them  with 
delight  for  hours,  and  even  entire  days  in  succession. 

But  we  linger  too  long  on  the  prologue  of  the  theme ;  let  us 
come  to  the  scenes  themselves.  These  scenes  belong  to  a  career 
extending  over  more  than  sixty  years,  during  which  the  poet  com- 
posed ninety  tragedies,  and  twenty  times  won  the  tragic  crown. 
Only  seven  of  these  tragedies  are  extant :  the  "  Antigone,"  "  Elec- 
tra,"  "  Trachiniae,"  "CEdipus  the  King,"  "Ajax,"  "  Philoctetes," 
and  "  CEdipus  at  Colonos."  Without  attempting  any  analysis  of 
them,  or  adding  to  what  I  have  said  of  their  artistic  character, 
I  wish  to  draw  attention  to  some  of  the  religious  views  which  they 
embody,  and  to  illustrate  them  by  a  quotation  of  passages.  It  is 
1  See  Dronke  (as  cited  above),  p.  62. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS   OF  SOPHOCLES.  365 

a  subject  which  has  been  often  treated  ; l  but  the  present  tenden- 
cies of  classical  studies  may  justify  an  endeavor  to  treat  it  again, 
even  if  no  new  results  are  reached. 

Perhaps  the  most  fundamental  of  all  the  religious  conceptions 
of  Sophocles  is  his  consciousness  of  the  insufficiency  of  man  in 
himself  for  the  attainment  of  the  ends  of  his  life,  of  the  vanity 
of  all  unassisted  human  endeavor.  This  fundamental  view  is, 
however,  nowise  impaired,  but  rather  deepened,  by  the  poet's  like 
constant  sense  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  and  of  all  that  is 
great  and  noble  in  the  origin  and  destiny  of  man.  Hence  the 
marked  vicissitudes  that  enter  the  action  of  his  dramas  —  of  good 
and  ill,  of  hope  and  despair,  triumph  and  defeat,  glory  and  shame, 
which,  like  alternate  storm  and  shine,  chase  each  other  across  the 
scene,  and  throw  their  swift  succeeding  lights  and  shades  over  all 
the  landscape.  It  makes,  indeed,  the  strange  irony  of  the  drama 
as  of  life,  that  in  spite  of  what  is  bravest  and  best  in  man  and 
his  doings,  and  even  through  his  own  purposed  agency,  the  direst 
evils  befall  him.  The  heroic  might  of  Ajax  makes  the  fatal 
snare  by  which  he  falls  ;  it  is  the  very  love  of  Deianeira  for  Hera- 
cles that  brings  mortal  agony  to  him  and  suicide  to  herself ;  Creon 
in  the  very  boast  of  his  power  utters  his  weakness ;  the  wisdom 
of  CEdipus,  which  solved  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx,  is  blind  to  the 
riddle  of  his  own  dark  life,  and  the  swift  steps  he  takes  in  his 
zeal  for  justice  only  haste  him  to  his  own  downfall.  Hence  the 
words  of  the  chorus,2  when  the  truth  of  CEdipus'  life  is  at  last 
revealed. 

"  Ah  !  race  of  mortal  men, 
How  as  a  thing  of  naught 
I  count  ye,  while  ye  live  ; 
For  who  is  there  of  men, 
That  more  of  blessing  knows, 
Than  just  a  little  while 
To  seem  to  prosper  well, 
And,  having  seemed,  to  fall  ?  " 

1  The  most  recent  work  on  the  subject,  and  one  of  inestimable  value  for  the 
study  and  right  understanding  of  Sophocles,  is  the  essay  (referred  to  above) 
by  the  late  Gustav  Dronke.  Professor  W.  S.  Tyler  has  also  discussed  it  in  two 
able  papers  on  the  Theology  of  Sophocles  in  the  BiUiotheca  Sacra,  vols.  xvii. 
and  xviii.  ;  also  Professor  E.  H.  Plumptre,  in  an  essay  prefixed  to  his  admira- 
ble translation  of  Sophocles ;  from  this  translation  we  take  most  of  the  quota- 
tions in  this  article. 

2  CEdipus  the  King,  1186-1192. 


366  THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

But  this  feeling  in  the  poet,  of  human  insufficiency,  only  lifts 
him  up  to  faith  in  a  divine  Presence  and  his  divine  order  in  the 
world,  in  a  Supreme  Being,  almighty  and  all-wise,  to  whose  laws 
it  is  man's  highest  wisdom  to  bow  himself  in  reverent  submission. 
For  this  reverent  disposition  of  the  mind  Sophocles  uses  the  word 
«wc/?«a,  corresponding  to  the  Latin  pietas  ;  it  is  piety  thought  of 
and  expressed  as  reverent  fear ;  it  discerns  in  the  acknowledgment 
of  man's  weakness  the  divine  wisdom  and  power,  and  gives  the 
grace  of  consecration  to  all  human  virtue,  in  that  it  joins  it  to  the 
devout  fear  of  God.  Many  passages  illustrate  this  view.  CEdi- 
pus,  in  his  greeting  of  Theseus,  thus  praises  Athens : 1  — 

"  For  I  have  found 
Here  only  among  men  the  fear  of  God." 

So,  too,  the  Chorus  thus  acknowledges  the  piety  of  Electra :  2 
"  I  have  ever  found  thee,  albeit  thy  lot  unhappy,  winning  the  vic- 
tor's prize  by  loyalty  to  duty,  through  thy  reverent  fear  of  Zeus." 
And  of  Zeus  himself  the  Chorus  also  says  to  Electra : 8  "  Cour- 
age, my  child,  take  courage ;  in  the  heavens  great  is  Zeus,  who  all 
things  oversees  and  rules."  And  both  aspects  of  the  truth  are 
presented  in  a  remarkable  passage  in  "  (Edipus  the  King :  "  *  — 

"  Would  't  were  my  lot  to  keep 

A  conscience  pure 

In  words  and  deeds,  whose  laws  are  set  on  high, 
Heaven-born,  their  only  sire  Olympus  ; 
Not  mortal  man  begot  them, 
Nor  e'er  shall  Lethe  lull  them  to  repose  ; 
In  these  there  lives  a  mighty  God, 

Who  ne'er  grows  old." 

It  is  to  these  heavenly  laws  that  Antigone  appeals  from  the 
decree  of  Creon  ;  and  when  at  last  the  catastrophe  has  revealed 
to  the  stricken  and  penitent  king  his  error  and  guilt,  the  Chorus 
utter  in  the  last  passage  of  the  drama  the*  great  lesson  of  the 
blessing  that  waits  upon  piety,  and  the  sore  penalties  exacted  of 
impious  pride. 

As  in  obedience  to  these  everlasting  laws  of  right  Sophocles 
places  man's  virtue  and  happiness,  so  in  their  transgression  he 
sees  the  source  of  personal  guilt,  and  all  its  sure  consequences  of 
misery  and  ruin.  And  here,  passing  into  the  province  in  which  all 
tragedy  moves,  we  are  to  observe  how  Sophocles  exhibits,  with 

1  Oldipus  at  Colonos,  1125, 1126.  2  Electra,  1093-1097. 

8  Electra,  173-175.  *  (Edipus  the  King,  863-872. 


THE  LIFE   AND  TEACHINGS   OF  SOPHOCLES.  367 

moral  ends  in  view,  the  mystery  of  human  suffering,  and  tries 
to  set  it  in  the  light  of  truth.  I  shall  point  to  the  two  chief 
aspects  in  which  he  has  presented  it :  the  one,  in  which  suffering  is 
retributive,  as  punishment  for  personal  and  willful  transgression  ; 
and  the  other,  in  which  it  is  disciplinary,  and  so  is  healing  and 
chastening.  The  idea  of  destiny,  which  Sophocles  received  from 
^Eschylus,  he  himself  presents  in  close  connection  with  the  work- 
ing of  the  human  will.  Man  may  choose  between  good  and  evil ; 
but  a  transgression,  a  passing  over  of  the  fixed  line  between  right 
and  wrong,  puts  him  in  the  path  of  guilt  and  ruin.  Sometimes 
swift  following,  sometimes  lingering  and  laggard  1  in  its  coming, 
calamitous  evil  is  sure  to  reach  him  as  his  portion.  The  evil,  if 
persisted  in,  passes  ever  to  worse  and  to  worst  in  character  and  in 
lot.  It  works  always,  and  nothing  but  evil.  As  the  German 
poet,  Schiller,  briefly  expresses  it,  in  illustration  of  the  ancient 
teaching :  — 

"  Das  istder  Fluch  derbosen  That, 
Dass  sie  fortzeugend  Boses  muss  gebaren." 

A  dire  element  of  this  fruitf ulness  of  evil  and  its  punishment 
is  the  judicial  blindness  with  which  the  transgressor  is  visited. 
This  is  the  Ate,  or  the  Erinnys,  which  as  an  avenging  Being 
blinds  the  guilty  one,  and  drives  him  on  to  moral  madness.  One 
striking  illustration  of  this  view  we  have  in  the  poet's  Ajax. 
This  heroic  soul  fell  a  victim  to  his  confidence  in  himself.  In  the 
"  pride  of  his  heart  he  waxed  haughty,"  and  boasted  his  inde- 
pendence of  the  gods.  To  his  father's  parting  counsel,  "  that 
with  his  spear  he  should  strive  to  win,  but  with  help  of  God,"  he 
proudly  replied  : 2  — 

"  My  father,  with  God's  help,  a  man  of  nought 

Might  victory  win  ;  but  I,  I  trust,  shall  grasp 

Without  his  aid  that  glory  for  myself." 

This  insolent  pride  was  his  first  sin,  a  pride  "  going  before 
destruction."  Next,  when  the  arms  of  Achilles  were  adjudged 
to  Ulysses,  he  yielded  to  deadly  anger,  and  then  to  a  purpose  to 
slay  Ulysses,  and  also  the  Atridse,  who  had  adjudged  the  arms. 
Then  is  he  smitten  with  madness,  which  brings  him  to  disgrace 

1  The  poet  Horace  has  also  a  striking  passage  on  this  truth  in  0,  III.  2,  lines 
31,  32  : 

"  Raro  antecedentem  scelestum 
Deseruit  pede  pcena  claudo." 

2  Ajax,  764^769. 


368  THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

and  humiliation  before  his  foes.  Most  impressive  is  the  way  in 
which  the  poet  represents  both  the  blinding  itself  and  the  lesson 
which  it  teaches.  It  is  in  the  dialogue  between  Athena  and  Odys- 
seus. I  give  only  a  few  lines l  (and  from  Plumptre's  translation). 
Athena  is  speaking  as  from  the  sky,  unseen  by  Odysseus :  — 

"  A  thena.  Dost  fear  so  much  to  see  a  madman's  face  ? 
Odysseus.  Nay  ;  were  he  sane  I  should  not  shun  him  then. 
Athena.  Though  thou  be  near  he  will  not  see  thee  now. 
Odysseus.  How  so,  if  he  the  same  eyes  has  to  see  ? 
Athena.  Know,  I  will  darken  even  clearest  eyes." 

Then  after  Ajax  has  appeared,  and  so  changed  by  his  frenzy  as 
even  to  excite  the  pity  of  his  adversary,  Athena  reads  thus  the 
lesson  to  Odysseus  :  2  — 

"  Do  thou,  then,  seeing  this,  refrain  thy  tongue 
From  any  lofty  speech  against  the  gods." 

"  The  gods  love  those  of  ordered  soul, 
And  hate  the  evil." 

Another  illustration  we  have  in  Creon,  and  here  the  downward 
steps  we  can  still  more  easily  trace,  as  belonging  to  an  inward 
spiritual  process.  Creon,  as  we  have  seen,  has  uttered  his  decree, 
which  was  in  violation  of  religion  and  humanity.  Antigone  has 
been  arrested  for  violating  this  decree,  and  has  been  brought 
before  the  king  for  judgment.  But  her  defense  has  stirred 
Creon' s  anger  all  the  more,  and  he  has  pronounced  her  doom  and 
sent  her  away.  Haemon,  the  king's  son,  and  the  affianced  lover 
of  Antigone,  comes  in,  and  beseeches  Creon  as  father,  as  king,  as 
man,  by  justice,  by  reason,  and  by  the  voice  of  all  Thebes,  to 
relent  and  spare  the  condemned.  But  in  vain,  Creon's  heart 
grows  harder,  and  he  bids  his  son  away,  declaring  that  "  the  girl 
shall  die,  and  before  the  eyes  of  her  lover."  Now  the  Chorus 
remonstrate,  but  only  to  push  the  king,  in  his  yet  more  hardened 
heart,  to  change  the  sentence  to  a  worse  doom  —  to  be  entombed 
alive.  Then  Antigone  herself  passes  across  the  scene,  heroic  to 
the  last  in  devotion  to  duty,  but  yet  as  human  and  as  woman, 
mourning  that  she  goes  on  that  last  journey  "unwept,  unwed, 
and  whelmed  in  woe,  —  no  more  to  look  upon  the  eye  of  day." 
Against  all  Creon  stands  unmoved,  and  his  heart  now  hardened 
to  stone.  Then  appears  the  aged  seer,  Tiresias.  Everywhere 
about  him  he  has  read  portents  of  coming  disaster,  and  he  comes 
to  beg  the  king  to  stop  in  his  mad  course.  He  recounts  the  por- 
1  Ajax,  81,  85.  2  Ajax,  127. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES.  369 

tents,  and  then  as  teacher  and  prophet  bids  him  heed  his  lessons 
of  warning  : 1  — 

"  Think  thou  on  this,  my  son,  —  to  err,  indeed, 
Is  common  unto  all ;  but  having  erred 
He  is  no  longer  reckless  or  unblest 
Who  seeks  for  healing,  not  persists  unmoved. 
Self-will  brings  on  itself  the  curse  of  blindness" 

The  self-willed,  blinded  king,  daring  to  heap  upon  the  seer,  as 
the  minister  of  religion,  his  words  of  scorn,  must  now  hear  from 
his  prophetic  lips  the  ills  that  are  soon  to  befall  him.  Hardly  is 
Tiresias  gone  when  these  ills  are  at  the  door,  and  beat  thick  and 
fast  upon  him,  now — but  too  late  —  beginning  to  relent;  the 
sight  of  Antigone  hanging  dead  in  her  caverned  tomb  ;  the  sui- 
cide of  his  distracted  son,  who  curses  his  father  as  he  dies ;  and 
then  the  tidings  of  his  wife's  death,  who  has  slain  herself  in 
anguish  and  despair. 

But  in  Sophocles  the  consequences  of  the  transgression  are  not 
limited  to  the  original  transgressor.  They  are  transmitted  and 
entailed  as  an  hereditary  evil  to  his  descendants,  the  sins  of  the 
fathers  visited  upon  the  children  to  the  third  and  fourth  genera- 
tion, and  even  ending  only  with  the  extinction  of  the  whole  race. 
Thus  Antigone,  in  the  third  generation  from  Labdacus,  is  repre- 
sented as  falling  a  victim  to  the  curse  that  lay  upon  his  house ; 
and,  indeed,  all  the  woes  of  the  ill-fated  CEdipus  and  his  family 
are  in  one  passage  mourned  by  the  Chorus  in  the  "Antigone"  as 
springing  from  the  same  source.  When  Antigone  is  led  out  to 
her  doom,  the  Chorus  break  forth  in  the  following  strain : 2  — 
"  Blessed  are  those  whose  life  no  woe  doth  taste  ! 

For  unto  those  whose  house 
The  gods  have  shaken,  nothing  fails  of  curse 
Or  woe,  that  creeps  to  generations  far ." 

And  in  a  later  strain,3  still  more  distinctly,  thus :  — 
"  I  see  the  woes  that  smote,  in  ancient  days, 

The  seed  of  Labdacus, 

Who  perished  long  ago,  with  grief  on  grief 
Still  falling  ;  nor  does  this  age  rescue  that ; 
Some  god  still  smites  it  down, 
Nor  have  they  any  end." 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  this  instance  the  poet  makes  no  men- 
tion of  the  original  transgression ;  but  in  the  other  tragic  in- 
stance, that  of  Pelops'  line,  to  which  Electra,  with  the  Atrida3, 

1  Antigone,  1023-1028.         2  Antigone,  582-686.         8  Antigone,  597-602. 


370          THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

belonged,  the  first  sin  is  directly  mentioned,  the  murder  of  Myrti- 
los  by  Pelops.  The  deed  is  so  interpreted  in  a  choral  ode  in  the 
"  Electra."  1  Dronke  has  shown  2  that  JEschylus  had  anticipated 
Sophocles  in  the  treatment  of  this  subject,  and  had  brought  out 
with  singular  clearness  and  force  his  view  of  the  hereditary 
nature  of  evil.  He  declares,  indeed,  that  ^schylus,  in  tracing 
back  the  moral  curse  that  befell  a  whole  family  to  its  origin  in 
the  sin  and  guilt  of  an  ancestor,  was  the  first  and  the  last  of  the 
Greeks  who  thus  ventured  upon  the  problem  of  original  sin ;  and 
he  adds  the  striking  remark,  that  he  "  needed  only  to  extend  his 
conception  from  one  race  of  men  to  the  entire  human  race,  to 
reach  the  full  truth  taught  by  revelation." 

I  have  thus  tried  to  show  how  Sophocles  exhibited  human  ca- 
lamity on  its  retributive  side ;  and  as  here  he  fully  answered  the 
one  moral  end  assigned  to  tragedy  by  Aristotle,  of  awakening  ter- 
ror at  the  punishment  of  the  guilty,  so  also,  as  we  shall  now  see, 
he  knew  how  for  the  other  moral  end  to  touch  to  the  quick  the 
sentiment  of  pity,  by  representing  the  chastening  and  even  the 
glorifying  influence  of  sorrow  in  the  sufferings  of  the  guiltless.  It 
is  very  characteristic  of  Sophocles  to  show  how  the  good  as  well 
as  the  evil  are  visited  with  calamity,  and  what  ends  of  moral  gov- 
ernment are  reached  by  such  visitation.  In  opposition  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Temanite  in  the  Book  of  Job,3  he  taught  that  the 
innocent  also  perished,  and  the  righteous  were  cut  off ;  and  this, 
too,  for  some  just  and  wise  end  of  the  just  and  wise  order  of  the 
world.  This  order  as  planned  and  carried  out  by  Zeus  embraces 
the  whole  and  each  individual  of  the  race.  No  one  comes  into 
account  for  himself,  but  as  a  part  of  the  whole,  as  a  single  link  in 
an  endless  chain ;  and  so,  when  the  plan  of  the  universe  demands 
it,  some  evil  may  befall  one  without  any  guilt  of  his  own.  But 
the  duty  lies  upon  man  to  submit  himself  to  the  laws  of  right  and 
truth,  which  are  written  on  the  heart ;  he  must  cherish  a  pious 
fear  and  trust  in  a  divine  superintending  power.  The  poet  thus 
conceives  and  represents  a  man  as  brought  to  some  crisis  in  his 
life,  where  he  falls  into  error,  and  then  by  successive  steps  com- 
mits acts  of  wrong  and  crime,  which  he  has  all  the  while  purposely 
shunned;  and  these  involve  him,  of  course,  in  heaviest  misfortunes. 
But  the  error  or  the  crime  is  involuntary,  and  the  suffering  unde- 

1  Electra,  504-515. 

8  In  the  essay  (as  above  cited),  p.  55. 

8  Plumptre,  p.  81,  and  the  note;  also  Dronke,  p.  67,  as  re-cited. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES.  371 

served.  But  such  an  one,  thus  tried  by  a  heavy  lot,  if  only  he 
holds  fast  to  his  faith  in  a  divine  wisdom,  which  he  may  not  com- 
prehend, is  ever  under  a  divine  protecting  care ;  and  if  he  find 
not  a  full  moral  satisfaction  here,  there  must  be  a  hereafter,  where 
the  divine  plan  of  the  world  will  reach  its  consummation.  We 
may  illustrate  some  of  these  views  as  they  are  exhibited  in  drama 
by  Sophocles.  In  the  tragedy  of  "  Philoctetes,"  the  poet  made  to 
pass  on  the  stage  before  the  Athenians  scenes  of  suffering  with 
which  they  had  been  familiar  in  the  poetry  of  Homer.  Philoctetes 
had  been  one  of  the  suitors  of  Helen,  and,  bound  by  the  oath  which 
the  suitors  had  taken  in  common,  he  had  joined  in  the  expedition 
against  Troy.  But  on  the  way,  while  on  the  island  of  Chryse,  he 
was  bitten  and  wounded  by  the  fangs  of  a  serpent ;  and  the  wound 
growing  more  and  more  painful,  and  the  distress  and  sharp  cries 
of  the  sufferer  in  the  camp  making  him  a  burden  to  his  country- 
men, at  length,  at  the  instance  and  under  charge  of  Ulysses,  he 
was  sent  away  to  the  island  of  Lemnos,  and  there  treacherously 
abandoned  to  his  fate.  There,  far  away  from  all  companionship 
and  help  of  men,  tortured  and  wasted  from  his  wound,  and  de- 
pendent upon  his  bow  and  arrows  for  a  scanty  subsistence,  he  wore 
away  months  and  years  of  a  wretched  life.  With  heroic  patience 
he  bore  all,  conscious  of  no  ill-desert,  but  bitterly  feeling  that  he 
was  the  victim  of  human  cruelty,  and  also  tempted  often  like  that 
other  sufferer,  and  from  physical  ills,  to  "  fling  away  his  integrity 
and  curse  God  and  die."  The  Chorus  of  the  play  in  a  wail  of  pity 
at  the  lot  of  the  hero  finds  it  on  that  account  worthy  of  compas- 
sion, that  he  bears  it  for  no  guilt  of  his  own.  Meantime,  nine 
years  of  the  Trojan  war  had  passed  away.  Hector  had  died,  and 
Achilles  and  Ajax,  and  Troy  was  not  yet  taken.  Now  the  prophet 
Helenus  told  the  Greeks  that  Troy  never  would  be  taken  but  by 
Neoptolemus,  the  son  of  Achilles,  and  with  the  bow  of  Heracles. 
But  Heracles  had  loved  Philoctetes,  and  at  his  death  had  given 
him  his  far-famed  arrows  and  bow ;  and  these  were  with  the  suf- 
ferer on  Lemnos.  So  Neoptolemus  and  Ulysses  were  dispatched 
to  Lemnos  to  bring  Philoctetes  to  the  camp  before  Troy.  As  the 
play  opens  these  have  just  arrived  on  the  island.  But  through 
the  wiles  of  Ulysses  Philoctetes  is  doomed  to  new  trials  yet  worse 
than  physical  ones.  Neoptolemus,  yielding  to  the  persuasions  of 
Ulysses,  his  ambition  getting  the  better  of  his  honor,  has  recourse 
to  stratagem.  He  wins  the  confidence  of  Philoctetes  by  professing 
sympathy  with  his  distresses,  promises  to  take  the  exile  to  his  dis- 


372          THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

tant  home,  and  at  last  is  intrusted  with  the  weapons  with  which 
he  is  to  take  Troy.  These  successful  wiles  slowly  disclose  them- 
selves to  their  victim ;  and  now  he  is  plunged  into  new  griefs. 
His  confidence  betrayed,  himself  again  visited  with  cruel  treach- 
ery, he  is  ready  to  sink  under  his  too  heavy  burdens,  and  to  cast 
himself  into  the  sea.  But  his  distresses  now  move  the  soul  of 
Neoptolemus  to  pity  and  penitence ;  he  confesses  his  meanness, 
restores  the  weapons,  and  now  gives  the  sufferer  real  sympathy 
and  aid.  He  tells  him  what  he  had  been  taught  by  the  seer  Hele- 
nus,  that  all  his  ills  had  befallen  him  by  divine  direction,  as 
means  of  good  to  himself  and  his  country.  He  was  "  to  be  sure 
of  this  and  write  it  in  the  tablets  of  his  mind ; "  and  that  the  ap- 
pointed time  had  now  come  when  he  should  "  be  healed  of  his  dis- 
ease, and  then  with  the  help  of  Neoptolemus  lay  low  the  towers  of 
Troy."  But  not  by  human  lips,  by  a  voice  from  heaven  alone 
could  the  sufferer  be  fully  persuaded.  Heracles  speaks  to  him 
from  the  sky  and  bids  him  hear  his  comforting  and  assuring  words, 
that  confirm  those  of  the  seer,  which  he  had  just  heard.  Healing 
is  assured  by  Zeus  through  the  skill  of  Asclepius,  and  then  by  his 
hand  Troy  is  to  fall.  And  so  with  the  pious  assent  of  Philoctetes 
and  his  words  of  farewell  to  the  island  where  he  had  suffered  so 
long  the  tragedy  ends,  the  curtain  falling  on  "  the  voyage  of  the 
homeward  bound." 

But  the  lessons  of  human  misfortune  are  unfolded  with  far 
more  fullness  in  the  two  plays  of  "  QEdipus."  The  words  of  the 
Latin  poet  Terence,  "Non  (jsum)  CEdipus"  have  made  Roman 
and  perhaps  most  modern  readers  chiefly  familiar  with  this  name 
as  that  of  a  cunning  reader  of  dark  riddles ;  but  in  Greek  tragedy, 
this  name,  even  as  that  of  Job  in  Hebrew  literature,  is  ever  asso- 
ciated with  a  mystery  never  read  by  man's  wisdom  —  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  righteous.  In  CEdipus  it  is  not  so  much  the  loss  of 
earthly  good  that  makes  his  tragic  story,  that  he  must  lose  rank 
and  wealth  and  family,  and  that  he  must  bear  in  his  grief  the 
harsh  judgments  and  evil  tongues  of  men ;  it  was  involuntary 
errors  and  crimes  that  made  the  worst  ingredients  in  his  cup  of 
bitterness.  A  dark  destiny  was  upon  him  from  his  birth.  His 
father  had  been  warned  by  oracle  of  dire  evil  which  needs  must 
come  if  a  son  were  born  to  him.  Yet  the  son  was  born ;  and 
after  his  birth,  all  in  vain  was  it  that  the  father  sought  to  frus- 
trate what  had  been  foretold.  Yet  worse  was  it  with  CEdipus 
himself.  A  righteous  king,  a  father  of  his  people,  raised  to  the 


THE  LIFE   AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES.          373 

throne  by  his  goodness  and  wisdom,  fearing  the  gods,  and  perpet- 
ually warned  by  oracles  he  religiously  believed,  yet  without  intend- 
ing it,  without  knowing  it,  he  had  fallen  into  the  double  crime  of 
slaying  his  father  and  marrying  his  mother.  For  years  all  goes 
well  with  his  family  and  his  realm.  Children  are  born  to  him, 
Thebes  and  its  people  prosper,  his  kingly  name  and  power  seem 
secure.  But  by  and  by  all  the  dire  horrors  that  underlie  this 
seeming  prosperity  come  up  to  the  surface  in  portentous  evils. 
The  wrath  of  the  gods  falls  upon  city  and  people  in  a  visitation 
by  plague,  and  an  oracle  declares  that  the  murderer  of  Laius  must 
be  discovered  and  punished.  The  plague  smites  the  cattle,  blights 
the  fruits  of  the  earth,  sweeps  away  the  first-born  of  women,  all 
Thebes  is  full  of  the  dead  and  the  dying.  With  the  description 
of  scenes  like  these  the  play  of  "GEdipus  Rex"  opens.  We  see  the 
palace  of  the  Theban  king,  in  front  the  altar  of  Zeus  and  priests 
and  attendants  about  it  in  attitude  of  supplication.  They  come 
to  tell  their  sovereign  their  tale  of  woe,  and  beg  his  succor  as  one 
who  had  once  saved  the  city,  and  who  they  believed  by  his  wis- 
dom can  save  it  again.  GEdipus  comes  forth  with  the  state  of  a 
monarch,  but  with  the  tenderness  of  a  father  of  his  people.  He 
tells  them  that,  smitten  as  they  are,  one  and  all,  yet  no  one  is  so 
smitten  as  himself.  "  Each  his  burden  bears,  his  own  and  not 
another's ;  but  my  heart  mourns  for  the  state,  for  you,  and  for 
myself."  How  sadly  ominous  of  what,  far  worse  than  direst 
plague,  is  soon  to  break  upon  him !  This  sore  visitation  is  the 
first  motive  to  the  action,  and  as  the  action  solemnly  moves  on  the 
complex  web  of  the  intrigue  is  gradually  unraveled  in  the  unfold- 
ing and  discovery  of  all  the  dread  history  of  the  ill-fated  king. 
And  through  all,  it  is  the  king  who,  without  a  misgiving  of  him- 
self, and  in  zealous  obedience  to  the  oracle,  presses  forward  all 
diverse  and  yet  converging  lines  of  inquiry  straight  to  the  final 
catastrophe.  In  the  midst  of  the  testimony,  sometimes  accordant, 
sometimes  contradictory,  a  single  word  of  a  witness  strikes  upon 
him,  even  as  thunder  from  a  clear  sky,  startling  the  sudden  re- 
membrance of  a  fatal  encounter  he  once  had  in  self-defense,  and 
instantly  with  that  a  suspicion  that  himself  was  the  murderer  of 
Laius.  The  queen,  who  sitting  by  has  heard  the  testimony,  has 
already  foreboded  all  with  a  woman's  intuition,  but  she  shrinks 
from  further  inquiry  ;  the  king,  however,  is  pushed  on  by  the  very 
horror  of  the  suspicion,  till  the  storm  of  the  whole  revelation 
bursts  upon  his  head.  That  single  word  has  proved  the  last  fatal 


374          THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

impulse  to  the  tottering  edifice  of  his  prosperity,  and  in  a  moment 
all  is  in  ruin.  There  can  scarcely  be  a  greater  contrast  in  drama 
or  in  life  itself  than  in  the  fortunes  of  (Edipus  at  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  this  tragedy.  As  in  that  opening  scene  he  came 
forth  from  his  palace  at  the  call  of  his  suffering  people,  by  whom 
he  was  remembered  as  once  the  savior  of  themselves  and  their 
children  from  the  destroyer,  "  the  blessing  of  him  that  was  ready 
to  perish  came  upon  him,  the  aged  arose  and  stood  up ;  men  gave 
ear,  and  waited  and  kept  silence  at  his  counsel."  But  now  how 
fallen !  "  his  welfare  passed  away  as  a  cloud,"  and  "  the  days  of 
his  affliction  upon  him."  He  feels  that  "  men  must  abhor  him 
and  flee  from  him,"  "  he  must  be  their  song,  their  by- word."  And 
his  family,  his  friends,  what  woes  he  brings  upon  them !  He 
weeps  for  his  daughters  as  he  "  pictures  in  his  mind  the  sad  and 
dreary  life  that  awaits  them  at  men's  hands  in  years  to  come,  the 
friendly  gathering,  the  solemn  feasts,  to  which  they  may  go,  and 
yet,  for  all  the  joy,  they  will  have  to  come  back  in  tears."  Nay, 
he  will  look  upon  them  no  more ;  and  in  his  distracting  anguish 
he  plucks  out  his  eyes,  uttering  the  strange  words,  that ."  as  in  see- 
ing they  never  saw  the  ills  he  did,  so  no  more  shall  they  know 
those  whom  he  had  ever  loved  to  know."  It  must  be,  he  thinks, 
that  some  dread  power  is  crushing  him,  he  must  be  hated  by  the 
gods.  He  prays  to  be  sent  out  of  the  land,  "  to  be  led  away,  of 
all  men  most  accursed,  most  hateful  to  the  gods."  And  so  there 
goes  forth  from  the  scene  the  now  discrowned  king,  a  bowed  and 
bending  form,  friendless,  homeless,  outcast,  a  blind  wanderer  into 
the  world,  "  bearing  a  burden  of  countless  ills  none  can  bear  save 
himself ;  "  and  as  he  goes  the  Chorus  thus  point  their  moral :  — 

"  From  hence  the  lesson  learn  ye,  , 

To  reckon  no  man  happy  till  ye  witness 
The  closing  day  ;  until  he  pass  the  border 
Which  severs  life  from  death  unscathed  by  sorrow."  * 

But  "  the  closing  day  "  of  CEdipus's  life  the  poet  lets  us  wit- 
ness in  his  "  Coloneus,"  the  last  of  the  plays  of  his  own  long  life. 
It  is  a  poem  of  deftly  woven  scenes,  in  which  we  see  the  sufferer 
chastened,  ennobled  by  his  sorrow,  and  at  last  well-nigh  glorified 
in  his  mysterious  end.  Since  he  was  thrust  forth  from  his  throne 
and  from  Thebes,  he  has  wandered  we  know  not  where  or  how 
long ;  yet  not  quite  friendless  and  alone,  for  by  his  side  has  wan- 
dered his  faithful  daughter  Antigone,  like  the  after  Cordelia  of 
1  (Edipus  R.,  Plumptre's  translation,  last  lines. 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES.          375 

Lear,  the  staff  and  comfort  of  his  blind  and  helpless  age.  In 
the  opening  of  the  poem  they  are  Bearing  the  plain  of  Colonus, 
though  all  unknown  to  themselves.  But  the  spot  seems  to  fore- 
bode peace  to  the  tired  wanderer,  for  Antigone  tells  him  "  it  is  a 
holy  spot,  as  one  may  clearly  see  ;  full  of  laurel,  olive,  and  vine, 
and  many  a  nightingale  singing  sweetly  within  it."  But  soon  they 
are  told  that  they  have  encroached  upon  sacred  ground.  It  is  the 
grove  of  the  Dread  Powers  ;  they  must  quit  it  at  once.  But  that 
word,  instead  of  terrifying,  reassures  the  mind  of  CEdipus,  for  he 
recalls  an  oracular  promise  he  has  long  kept  in  his  heart,  that 
after  many  years  of  suffering  he  should  be  "  a  suppliant  at  the 
shrine  of  dreaded  gods,  and  then  should  near  the  goal  of  his  woe- 
worn  life."  Dronke,  with  his  profound  insight  into  the  nature  of 
Sophocles,  has  called  special  attention  to  the  religious  sense  which 
the  poet  had  of  the  communion  of  man  with  a  Divine  Power, 
whenever  there  is  in  his  soul  a  spirit  of  reverent  fear  and  trust. 
The  gods  hear  even  inaudible  prayer,  the  inward  desires  of  the 
pious  soul ;  they  hear  and  guide  by  an  inward  voice  ;  such  a  soul 
listens  and  follows,  often  all  unconscious,  whither  and  to  what  it  is 
to  be  led,  but  by  and  by  learning  and  acknowledging  it  by  a  grate- 
ful experience.  So  it  is  here  with  CEdipus.  It  is  the  promises  he 
has  heard  and  has  cherished,  which  in  their  gradual  fulfillment 
make  the  precious  burden  of  the  poem.  Those  Dread  Powers  are 
now  for  CEdipus  the  Eumenides,  the  gentle  ones,  and  their  grove, 
where  other  mortals  might  not  set  their  foot,  is  for  him  the  chosen 
sanctuary  of  rest  and  peace.  Of  this  he  is  soon  also  outwardly 
assured  by  Theseus,  the  Athenian  king,  who  comes  out  to  meet 
him  with  all  the  gracious  courtesy  of  a  soul  as  kingly  as  his  per- 
son, and  proffers  him  hospitality  and  protection.  Indeed,  a 
noble  figure  has  Sophocles,  as  an  Athenian  poet,  here  made  to 
pass  before  his  countrymen  in  Theseus,  their  ancient  king.  In 
sympathy  with  the  sufferings  of  the  wanderer,  he  tells  him  that 
he,  too,  has  struggled  through  many  a  risk  and  peril  in  a  strange 
land,  and  even  now,  though  a  king,  can  count  no  more  than  other 
mortals  on  what  the  morrow  may  bring.  He  accepts  the  privilege 
accorded  him,  as  the  sovereign  of  Athens,  to  receive  CEdipus  and 
bury  him  in  Attic  soil.  No  one  but  himself  is  to  know,  and  he 
is  to  tell  no  one  where  CEdipus  dies ;  and  for  this  he  is  assured 
Athens  will  be  blessed  with  "  a  boon  greater  than  many  shields." 
And  now  all  seems  nearing  the  weary  wanderer's  earthly  end ; 
and  all,  too,  is  strangely  significant  in  the  manner  of  his  passing 


376          THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

away.  The  hallowed  spot  at  length  found,  there  takes  place  a 
last  ceremony  of  libation  and  cleansing.  Sophocles  may  have 
been  familiar  with  it  as  belonging  to  the  ritual  of  the  sacred 
grove  of  his  native  deme  ;  he  may  have  administered  it  himself 
in  the  functions  of  the  priestly  office  he  held  in  his  later  years. 
First,  libations  from  the  flowing  stream,  poured  thrice,  turning 
to  the  east,  and  with  a  lifting  up  of  holy  hands.  Then  prayers 
to  be  offered,  that  he  may  be  received  and  saved  as  a  suppliant. 
With  singular  minuteness  of  detail  is  the  prayer  described : 
"Pray  both  thyself,  and  some  one  in  thy  stead,  in  low  voice 
speaking,  not  in  lengthened  cry."  One  other  expression  should 
be  noted,  in  illustration  of  the  words  some  one  in  thy  stead. 
When  OEdipus  was  bidden  to  go  and  perform  this  last  service  he 
said  to  Antigone  and  Ismene  :  — 

"  I  may  not  go.     Two  evils  press  on  me, 
My  failing  strength  and  loss  of  power  to  see  ; 
Let  one  of  you  go  on  and  do  these  things, 
For  one  soul  working  in  the  strength  of  love, 
Is  mightier  than  ten  thousand  to  atone."  1 

Then  must  be  said  the  parting  words  to  his  daughters  :  "  And 
when  they  had  wept  and  sobbed,  and  their  wailing  was  ended," 
there  came  a  silence.  "  Then  a  voice  called  aloud  to  him  and 
filled  them  all  with  fear."  This  he  perceived  to  be  the  call  of 
God,  and  so  bade  Theseus  to  come  and  alone,  as  had  been  ap- 
pointed. So  only  the  two  went  together,  and  what  then  came  to 
pass  Theseus  only  knew;  and  he  told  it  not.  Only  he  was  soon 
seen  "  holding  his  hand  to  shade  his  eyes,  as  one  to  whom  there 
comes  a  vision  dread,  he  may  not  bear  to  look  upon."  "  And  so," 
as  the  "  Messenger  "  in  the  poem  reports  it,  "  he  did  not  leave  the 
world  as  worn  with  pain  and  sickness ;  but  his  end,  if  any  ever 
was,  was  wonderful." 

We  may  readily  accept  the  prevailing  view,  that  this  poem 
belongs  to  the  close  of  Sophocles'  life,  so  fitting  are  all  its  scenes 
to  the  contemplation  of  the  poet  himself,  then  awaiting  at  an 
advanced  age  the  inevitable  hour.  And  how  meet  it  was  for  the 
poet  to  lay  the  scenes  of  such  a  tragedy  in  Athens,  his  birthplace 
and  cherished  home  for  nearly  ninety  years ;  to  celebrate  with  his 
last  Muse  all  that  he  had  so  loved  from  childhood  of  the  scenery 

1  (Edipus  at  Colonus,  495-499  ;  quoted  and  translated  by  Plumptre  (p.  86), 
who  adds  :  "  We  may  well  say  with  Dronke  (p.  87),  that  the  thought  stands 
out '  with  no  parallel  to  it  in  the  literature  of  antiquity.'  " 


THE  LIFE  AND  TEACHINGS  OF  SOPHOCLES.  377 

of  his  native  Colonus,  casting  a  new  glory  by  his  poetry  over  its 
groves  and  waters,  to  which  nature  had  already  given  such  an 
enduring  beauty ;  to  recall  and  fix  in  the  memory  of  his  country- 
men the  heroic  virtues  of  their  revered  Theseus,  and  to  consecrate 
their  city  anew  and  forever  as  the  refuge  of  the  oppressed,  and 
the  sanctuary  of  religion.  There  is  a  pleasant  story  told  both  by 
Plutarch  1  and  by  Cicero,2  which  gives  a  special  interest  to  this 
poem  and  to  the  personal  history  of  Sophocles.  His  sons,  declar- 
ing that  their  father  was  incapable,  from  imbecile  age,  of  managing 
his  property,  appealed  to  the  court  to  have  it  taken  out  of  his 
hands.  The  poet  in  his  defense  simply  read  to  his  judges  part  of 
this  play,  which  he  had  just  written,  and  asked  whether  that  were 
the  work  of  a  man  in  his  dotage  ;  when  he  was  at  once  acquitted 
by  all  the  votes,  and  went  out  of  court  amidst  such  applause  as 
he  had  been  wont  to  win  in  the  theatre.  Nor  was  it  strange,  for 
the  passage  he  read  was  that  finest  and  most  musical  of  the  choral 
odes  3  of  the  Attic  drama,  in  which  are  sung  the  beautiful  groves 
of  Colonus.  We  are  reminded  of  the  words  Plato  says4  of 
Apollo's  swans,  "  who,  when  they  are  near  to  die,  having  sung  all 
their  life  long,  do  then  sing  more  sweetly  than  ever,  rejoicing  that 
they  are  about  to  go  away  to  the  god,  whose  ministers  they  are." 
And  so  in  such  a  song,  having  in  it  and  upon  it  that  double  grace 
of  art  and  religion,  which  had  adorned  all  that  he  had  ever 
touched,  we  may  think  of  Sophocles  as  breathing  out  his  life 
tranquilly,  cheerfully,  full  of  years,  crowned  with  honors,  be- 
loved by  all  men,  and  "  dear  to  the  gods." 

The  Old  Comedy  of  Athens  hushed  its  voice  of  license  at  the 
tidings  of  his  death,  and  in  the  "Muses"  of  Phrynichus  thus 
honored  his  memory :  — 

"  Blest,  yea,  thrice  blest  was  Sophocles,  who  lived 
Long  years,  —  of  subtle  wit  aiid  prosperous  life, 
Who  many  noblest  tragedies  did  frame, 
And  passed  away  at  last  without  a  pang." 

1  An  seni  sit  gerenda  respublica,  3. 

2  De  Senectute,  c.  7.     But  Schb'll,  in  his  Life  of  Sophocles,  p.  345,  considers 
the  story  apocryphal,  and  thinks  also  that  the  CEdipus  Coloneus  was  written 
many  years  before  the  poet's  death. 

8  CEdipus  Coloneus,  668-719. 
4  Phcedo,  p.  84. 


ROMAN  WOMEN  IN  THE    FIRST  CENTURY  OF 
THE  EMPIRE. 

WRITTEN   FOR  THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,    FEBRUARY,    1877. 

IT  was  a  pithy  word  of  the  sturdy  Cato  Major :  "  We  Ro- 
mans, it  is  true,  rule  all  the  world,  but  we  ourselves  are  ruled  by 
our  wives."  The  old  Sabine  meant  by  it  no  compliment  to  the 
sex ;  it  was  a  rough  sarcasm,  by  which  he  aimed  to  sting  his  fel- 
low-citizens into  resistance  to  the  growing  influence  of  the  women 
at  a  time  when  a  very  singular  but  quite  Roman  contest  was  go- 
ing on  in  public  life.  It  was  a  contest  for  what  would  be  called 
in  modern  phrase  women's  rights.  The  great  question  which  then 
agitated  all  Rome  was  the  abolition  of  the  sumptuous  Oppian 
law  which  had  put  grievous  restrictions  on  female  dress,  and  espe- 
cially the  wearing  of  purple  and  of  ornaments  in  gold.  Livy 
presents  the  whole  scene  in  one  of  his  most  highly  pictured  pages. 
In  the  college  of  tribunes,  two  were  in  favor  of  the  measure  and 
two  against  it.  Of  the  consuls,  Flaccus  was  wavering,  but  Cato 
inexorable  in  opposition  ;  and  the  nobles  and  the  people  were  also 
well-nigh  equally  divided.  Pending  the  public  discussion,  the 
women  abandoned  all  their  usual  avocations,  and  gave  themselves 
with  the  utmost  zeal  to  all  the  arts  of  canvassing.  They  poured 
forth  into  the  streets  en  masse  ;  they  besieged  all  the  avenues  to 
the  Forum,  intercepting  the  citizen  voters  as  they  came  down 
to  the  assembly  and  plying  them  by  argument  and  entreaty  to 
vote  for  the  abolition  of  the  odious  law.  They  even  invaded 
the  judicial  dignity  of  the  praetors,  and  set  aside  the  consuls' 
lictors,  to  force  their  way  to  these  higher  magistrates  and  implore 
their  good  offices.  As  might  have  been  expected,  when  at  last 
the  house  came  to  vote  upon  the  bill,  the  women  were  trium- 
phant. They  overcame  the  opposition  of  the  recusant  tribunes, 
they  carried  the  suffrages  of  all  the  tribes,  and,  except  the  inex- 
orable Cato,  they  conquered  and  ruled  all  the  Roman  world. 
"  Cuncta  terrarum  subacta,  Prceter  atrocem  animum  Catonis" 
And  so  old  Cato's  sarcasm  proved  true,  in  spite  of  himself  and 
his  characteristic  uugallant  speech ;  and  the  Romans,  rulers  of  the 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  379 

world,  were  ruled  by  their  wives.  I  have  begun  our  discussion  with 
this  remark,  and  the  particular  scene  to  which  it  belongs,  because 
it  illustrates  a  general  fact  in  Roman  social  and  national  life.  Far 
more  than  any  other  ancient  people,  and  hardly  less  than  any 
modern  one,  the  Romans  accorded  to  woman  a  high  position, 
and  a  commanding  influence  in  the  family,  in  society,  and  in  all 
the  great  interests  of  life.  Some  of  the  oldest  and  the  proudest 
Roman  memories  are  linked  to  the  fortunes  of  women  and  their 
services  to  the  country,  whether  in  the  fortitude  with  which  they 
endured  evils  or  the  courage  with  which  they  encountered  dan- 
gers. In  the  deadly  fight  which  followed  the  rape  of  the  Sabine 
women,  it  was  the  women  themselves  who  by  their  bold  interven- 
tion stopped  the  unnatural  strife  and  reconciled  the  combatants, 
and  by  their  courageous  conduct  they  won  grateful  honors  from 
Romulus,  who  called  the  thirty  Curies  after  the  name  of  their 
leaders,  and  instituted  the  celebrated  Matronalia,  a  national  fes- 
tival, which  survived  the  fall  both  of  the  monarchy  and  of  the 
republic.  In  the  great  Volscian  war,  when  Rome  was  at  the 
mercy  of  her  victorious  foe,  Coriolanus,  the  leader  and  soul  of 
the  war,  could  sternly  send  back  embassy  after  embassy  of  the 
distinguished  men  of  the  state  who  came  to  sue  for  peace,  but  he 
broke  down  all  humbled  and  subdued  at  the  coming  of  a  suppli- 
ant company  of  Roman  matrons,  his  mother  and  wife  at  their 
head,  and  immediately  withdrew  his  army  and  went  himself  into 
voluntary  exile.  Livy  tells  us  that  the  Roman  men  grudged  not 
the  Roman  women  the  praise  due  them  for  this  victory  of  peace  ; 
in  honor  of  their  service  a  temple  was  built  and  dedicated  to 
Woman's  Fortune  on  the  very  spot  where  the  conquering  Cori- 
olanus was  conquered  by  his  mother's  words.  It  was  Roman  vir- 
gins who  were  alone  counted  worthy  to  keep  the  sacred  fire  ever 
burning  in  the  Temple  of  Vesta,  the  national  hearthstone.  It  was 
only  Roman  matrons  to  whom  was  intrusted  the  sacred  symbol  of 
the  worship  of  Cybele,  the  great  mother  of  the  gods.  Two  great 
national  revolutions,  the  overthrow  of  the  monarchy  and  the 
abolition  of  the  decemvirate,  grew  out  of  the  avenging  of  the  in- 
vaded honor  of  woman,  and  consecrated  forever  in  history  the 
names  of  Lucretia  and  Virginia.  The  heroic  Cloalia  shared  with 
brave  Horatius  the  honors  of  the  war  with  Porsena,  winning 
recognition  alike  from  friend  and  foe,  a  war-horse  adorned  with 
splendid  trappings  from  Porsena,  and  from  the  Romans  the  quite 
unique  honor  of  a  statue  of  a  woman  on  horseback,  which  was 


380  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

set  up  in  the  Sacred  Way,  and  which  stood  there  during  all  the 
ages  of  the  republic,  down  to  the  empire,  to  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  her  heroism.  Not  to  extend  farther  these  illustrations 
drawn  from  the  earlier  Roman  times,  let  me  sum  up  the  truth 
which  they  all  set  forth  in  the  words  of  the  younger  Seneca,  who 
lived  and  wrote  in  the  first  half  century  of  the  empire,  and  so 
may  bring  me  nearer  to  my  immediate  theme.  In  his  letter  of 
consolation  to  Marcia  he  says,  "  Who,  indeed,  can  ever  assert  that 
nature  has  dealt  ill  with  woman  in  respect  to  intellectual  endow- 
ments, or  has  confined  her  virtues  within  any  narrow  limits  ?  In 
what  city  is  it  that  we  ask  such  a  question?  In  that  one,  for- 
sooth, where  Lucretia  and  Brutus  overthrew  the  monarchy ;  free- 
dom we  owe  indeed  to  Brutus,  but  Brutus  himself  we  owe  to  Lu- 
cretia ;  in  that  city,  too,  where  we  have  put  Clo3lia  in  respect  to 
courage  on  a  level  with  men.  There  in  the  Sacred  Way  she  sits 
mounted  high  on  that  noble  war-horse,  and  rebukes  our  effem- 
inate youth  who  are  borne  by  her  on  their  soft-cushioned  litters, 
that  they  dare  to  show  themselves  thus  in  a  city  where  women 
have  been  honored  with  an  equestrian  statue." 

During  the  subsequent  ages  of  the  republic  and  the  early 
period  of  the  empire,  the  relative  estimation  in  which  women 
were  held  was  never  impaired.  On  the  contrary,  their  position  in 
respect  to  freedom  and  independence,  and  the  means  of  gaining 
and  exerting  influence,  was  constantly  rising,  while  they  severely 
suffered  at  first  from  the  growing  laxity  of  social  morality,  and 
at  last  came  to  have  their  full  personal  share  in  the  degeneracy 
and  corruption  of  Roman  society.  In  the  contemporary  Roman 
writers  we  have  sufficient  material  for  a  delineation  of  the  edu- 
cation, character,  and  influence  of  the  women  of  this  period.  The 
poetry  of  Martial  and  Ovid  and  of  Tibullus,  Propertius,  and 
Horace,  and  especially  the  Satires  of  Juvenal  and  the  historical 
pages  of  Tacitus  furnish  lights  and  the  darker  shades  of  the  pic- 
ture of  the  sex  as  a  whole,  as  well  as  full  portraits  of  individual 
women  who  figured  more  prominently  in  the  brilliant  society  of  the 
imperial  capital.  To  begin  with  their  earliest  years,  we  discover, 
from  the  glimpses  opened  to  us  by  these  writers,  fond  and  anx- 
ious fathers  there  were  in  Rome,  and  mothers  yet  fonder  and 
more  anxious,  who  followed  their  children  even  in  their  infancy 
with  their  warmest  hopes  and  wishes,  and  carried  them  on  their 
hearts  and  their  lips  when  they  went  to  the  temples  of  the  gods. 
The  Roman  girls,  like  all  other  children,  were  fondled  with  caress- 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  381 

ing  names  and  words;  they  had  their  nursery  playthings,  their 
New  Year  and  birthday  gifts,  and  were  guarded  with  superstitious 
care  by  charms  and  amulets  against  the  evil  eye  and  other  forms 
of  sorcery.  Their  eager  minds  were  fed  by  nurses  and  mothers 
with  stories  of  virtue  and  wisdom  drawn  from  the  heroic  and 
golden  days  of  their  country,  and  their  childish  fancy  quickened 
and  entertained  by  excursions  into  the  wonderland  of  myth  and 
fable,  Greek  as  well  as  Roman.  When  the  years  of  education 
came,  they  were  first  of  all  carefully  trained  to  domestic  labors ; 
especially  they  were  taught  to  spin  and  weave ;  for  at  that  time, 
also,  it  was  common  for  articles  of  clothing  for  the  family  to  be 
wrought  at  home  by  the  daughters  under  the  direction  of  the  mo- 
ther. We  are  told  that  Augustus  himself  had  his  daughters  and 
granddaughters  trained  to  these  useful  occupations,  and  that  he 
was  wont  to  wear  tunics  and  togas  that  were  manufactured  under 
his  own  roof.  Even  women  that  laid  no  claim  to  matronly  dignity, 
like  the  Cynthia  of  Propertius  and  the  Delia  of  Tibullus,  formed 
no  exception  to  these  honest  household  labors.  It  is  curious  to 
see  in  a  poem  of  Tibullus  a  picture  of  busy  female  industry  in 
the  interior  of  this  Delia's  house  that  reminds  us  of  Livy's  de- 
scription of  the  home  of  the  virtuous  Lucretia.  The  lover  com- 
forts himself  in  the  pains  of  absence  by  fancying  the  scene  of 
the  next  meeting  ;  how  Delia  is  at  work  at  evening  by  lamplight 
in  the  midst  of  her  spinning  maidens,  an  aged  nurse  the  while 
reading  aloud  a  charming  story,  when  the  poet  breaks  in  upon  the 
group,  and  Delia  springs  forth  to  meet  him  with  bare  feet  and 
hair  all  streaming  over  her  neck  and  shoulders.  And  though  a 
later  writer  living  in  Claudius'  reign  complains  that  the  women 
are  growing  luxurious  and  lazy,  that  they  neglect  even  their  do- 
mestic spinning,  the  complaint  itself  only  proves  what  was  still  the 
Roman  custom,  though  in  some  cases  it  was  honored  more  in  the 
breach  than  in  the  observance.  The  education  by  books  and 
teaching  was  usually  conducted  at  home  for  the  girls  of  the  higher 
classes,  while  the  people  in  general  were  wont  to  send  their  chil- 
dren to  the  common  school,  which,  in  Martial's  words,  the  school- 
master kept  with  a  rigid  discipline,  his  "  head  hated  alike  by  boys 
and  girls,"  "  invisum  pueris  virginibusque  caput."  Horace  com- 
plains that  the  Roman  boys  were  drilled  all  too  much  in  arithme- 
tic, and  always  with  an  eye  to  its  sordid  uses  in  making  money ; 
however  that  may  have  been,  the  chief  subjects  of  instruction  for 
the  girls  were  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  and  Roman  letters,  espe- 


382  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

cially  the  poets.  Sometimes  the  mothers  themselves  read  Homer 
and  Virgil  to  their  daughters,  but  generally  they  had  teachers  who 
came  to  the  house  and  gave  lessons  in  the  study  of  these  and  other 
poets.  Special  attention  was  also  given  to  the  instruction  of  girls 
in  music  and  dancing.  The  poet  Statius  describes  his  step-daugh- 
ter as  a  model  of  a  well-educated  Roman  maiden.  He  assures 
her  fond  mother  that  soon  her  daughter  will  find  a  husband,  at 
least  that  she  deserves  the  best  one  alike  for  her  personal  charms 
and  for  her  mental  gifts  and  attainments ;  whether  she  plays  on  the 
lute,  singing  her  father's  songs  from  melodies  of  her  own  compos- 
ing, or  whether  she  moves  gracefully  in  the  mazes  of  the  dance. 
"  Yet,"  he  adds,  "  her  talents  and  her  musical  skill  are  far  sur- 
passed by  the  virtues  of  her  character."  It  was  the  custom  for 
girls  from  the  noblest  families,  three  times  nine  in  number,  to  pre- 
cede the  processions  on  holy  days,  singing  in  chorus  the  sacred 
hymns.  Horace,  in  a  charming  stanza,  bids  those  who  were 
maidens  at  the  date  of  his  secular  hymn  to  remember  by  and  by, 
when  wedded  wives,  how  then  they  "  sang  song  dear  to  gods,  song 
taught  by  him,  —  Horace,  the  poet."  Another  picture  of  such  a 
well-educated  girl  is  given  by  the  younger  Pliny,  in  his  eulogy  of 
the  daughter  of  the  Consul  Fundanus,  who  died  just  before  the  day 
appointed  for  her  wedding.  "  She  was  not  yet  quite  fourteen," 
he  says,  "  and  yet  she  united  a  maiden's  modesty  and  grace  with 
womanly  dignity.  How  fondly  she  hung  upon  her  father's  neck ! 
How  she  loved  her  attendants  and  her  teachers,  each  according  to 
his  rank !  How  diligent,  how  intelligent,  in  her  studies !  With 
what  skill  she  played  upon  musical  instruments !  And  with  what 
patience  and  composure  she  bore  her  last  illness !  " 

Very  early  the  parents  sought  to  secure  the  future  fortune  of 
their  daughters  by  a  suitable  marriage.  The  Eoman  girl  reached 
her  majority  in  respect  to  marriage  at  twelve  years  of  age,  and  it 
may  be  said  that,  as  a  rule,  Roman  women  were  married  between 
the  twelfth  and  the  seventeenth  year.  The  completed  nineteenth 
year  was  looked  upon  as  the  quite  late  limit  for  marriage.  In  re- 
gard to  men,  it  may  be  said  that  the  usual  age  for  marriage  was 
twenty-five,  the  age  which  was  fixed  by  law  for  entering  the  quaes- 
torship,  the  first  in  time  of  the  civil  offices.  The  historian  Tacitus 
married  Agricola's  daughter  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  and  when 
the  bride  was  thirteen.  Agricola  himself  was  married  at  twenty- 
three.  Ovid  makes  it  the  burden  of  a  line  in  his  "  Tristia,"  that 
he  had  a  wife  given  him  when  he  was  yet  a  boy,  and  he  adds  that 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  383 

she  was  "  neither  worthy  nor  useful  "  ("  nee  digna  nee  utilis  "). 
The  young  Marcellus  was  married  at  eighteen,  and  Julia,  the  ein- 
peror's  daughter,  whom  he  married,  was  fourteen.  Many  other 
similar  instances  might  be  cited.  Girls  were  often  betrothed  in 
childhood,  but  Augustus  decreed  that  none  should  be  betrothed* 
earlier  than  at  ten  years  of  age.  The  betrothal  was  always  a  fes- 
tive occasion,  celebrated  in  the  presence  of  a  large  company  of  the 
family  and  friends  of  the  parties.  I  have  not  space  to  dwell  upon 
the  preparations  for  the  marriage,  or  the  details  of  the  wedding 
ceremony.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  bride  took  leave  of  her 
childhood  by  a  formal  consecration  of  her  dolls  and  other  toys  to 
the  deities  who  had  hitherto  watched  over  her,  and  that  on  the 
momentous  day  she  was  dressed  and  adorned  for  the  long-expected 
hour  only  by  the  hands  of  her  mother.  Already  at  early  morn  the 
houses  of  both  parties  were  filled  with  relations  and  friends,  who 
also  assisted  at  the  signing  of  the  marriage  contract.  Both  houses 
glittered  in  festive  adornments,  and  the  atria  were  hung  with  gar- 
lands and  branches  of  laurel.  At  the  home  altars,  and  also  in  the 
temples,  libations  and  sacrifices  were  made,  and  wherever  the  mar- 
riage procession  went,  the  streets  were  crowded  with  spectators. 
In  olden  time  the  bride  was  conducted  to  the  house  of  her  hus- 
band on  the  rising  of  the  evening  star,  and  though  this  custom 
had  long  since  passed  away,  yet  it  was  always  a  torch  procession 
which  brought  her  to  her  new  home,  with  the  accompaniment  of 
lute  and  song.  Arrived  there  and  lifted  over  the  threshold,  she 
was  escorted  to  the  triclinium,  where  was  celebrated  the  marriage 
feast.  The  luxury  which  had  come  to  prevail  at  these  feasts  had 
brought  about  a  sumptuous  law  of  Augustus,  which  restricted  the 
outlay  to  one  thousand  sesterces,  about  forty  dollars,  but  the  small- 
ness  of  this  sum  makes  it  well-nigh  sure  that  this  law,  like  all 
Roman  enactments  of  this  class,  was  never  observed. 

At  marriage  the  Roman  woman  passed  at  once  from  a  condition 
of  dependence  and  subjection  to  one  of  unlimited  freedom ;  to  her- 
self, especially  considering  her  extreme  youth,  it  must  have  seemed 
an  emerging  into  a  new  world,  a  sudden  opening  and  widening  all 
around  her  of  the  horizon  of  her  life.  Hitherto  confined  and  in- 
deed immured  within  her  father's  house,  hardly  passing  beyond 
the  bounds  of  the  nursery  and  the  schoolroom,  under  the  strict 
custody  of  parents  and  attendants  and  teachers,  she  suddenly 
found  herself  in  a  domestic  realm  of  her  own,  where  she  was  an 
acknowledged  sovereign  by  the  side  of  her  husband.  And  outside 


384  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

of  this,  her  own  peculiar  sphere,  if  she  belonged  to  a  family  of 
rank,  she  had  now  the  entree  into  the  great  and  brilliant,  though 
most  perilous  world  of  imperial  Roman  society.  In  her  own  home, 
never  confined,  like  the  Greek  woman,  to  any  gynceceum  or  wo- 
*  man's  apartments,  she  had  always  the  free  range  of  the  whole 
house,  as  mater f am ilias  and  as  domina,  presiding  over  the  house- 
hold, and  sharing  with  her  husband,  on  equal  terms,  all  its  honors 
at  the  table,  in  the  atrium,  and  at  all  entertainments.  Tacitus' 
brief  description  of  the  conjugal  relations  of  Agricola  and  his  wife 
is  an  illustration  in  real  life  of  the  ideal  of  a  genuine  Roman  mar- 
riage. "  They  lived  together,"  he  says,  "  in  wonderful  harmony, 
by  means  of  mutual  affection,  and  by  each  in  turn  preferring  the 
other."  "  With  this  exception,"  he  adds,  with  a  tacit  allusion  to 
the  corruption  of  the  times,  "  with  this  exception  in  favor  of  the 
wife,  that  a  good  wife  always  deserves  the  greater  praise  in  propor- 
tion as  a  bad  one  incurs  the  more  blame."  The  Roman  religion  con- 
secrated Juno  as  the  guardian  divinity  of  the  conjugal  union,  who, 
as  the  spouse  of  Jove  and  the  queen  of  Olympus,  was  worshiped 
as  the  presiding  genius  of  woman  and  the  protectress  of  her  mar- 
ried life.  I  may  venture  here  the  reflection  that,  if  we  may  credit 
Homer's  description  of  the  many  quite  serious  disturbances  in  the 
Olympian  household  which  grew  out  of  the  imperious  will  of 
Jove,  we  may  well  believe  that  Juno  was  eminently  qualified,  by 
personal  sympathy,  to  be  the  protectress  of  her  sex  in  the  house- 
holds of  earth.  Be  that,  however,  as  it  may,  Juno  had  always  a 
cherished  shrine  on  the  Palatine,  and  as  the  Roman  husbands 
were  not  all  like  Agricola,  this  shrine  was  an  asylum,  whither  an 
injured  wife  was  wont  to  betake  herself  to  make  known  her  griev- 
ances ;  and  she  would  not  return  to  her  home  till  her  repentant 
husband  sought  her  out  and  brought  her  back,  with  promises  of 
reparation  and  amendment.  It  is  a  good  testimony  which  Plu- 
tarch bears  to  Cato  Major,  that  with  all  his  sternness  he  was  a 
dutiful  and  humane  husband  ;  and  he  quotes  a  golden  remark  of 
his,  "  that  men  who  maltreated  their  wives,  laid  violent  hands  on 
the  choicest  sanctuaries  of  earth ;  and  that  for  himself  he  honored 
far  more  a  good  husband  than  a  wise  senator."  In  other  than 
personal  relations  the  position  of  the  Roman  wife  was  a  very  in- 
dependent one.  The  old  law,  which  gave  to  the  husband  as  his 
own  the  dowry  which  his  wife  brought  and  all  else  which  she  had 
possessed,  was  now  no  longer  in  force,  and  the  existing  law  vested 
in  the  woman  the  right  to  her  property.  It  was  now  only  the 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  385 

dowry  that  came  into  possession  of  the  husband,  nor  was  the  right 
to  this  an  unlimited  one ;  the  rest  of  her  property  the  wife  re- 
tained in  her  own  right  as  possession  as  well  as  in  use.  In  point 
of  fact,  however,  there  was  in  the  marriages  of  this  period  a  com- 
mon use  of  the  property  of  both  parties,  and  the  legal  division 
took  place  only  in  case  of  death  or  of  divorce.  There  were  some 
results  of  these  legal  and  actual  relations  in  ancient  Rome  of  a 
quite  human  sort,  which  we  find  sufficiently  illustrated  in  modern 
times.  It  was  not  uncommon  for  men  who  had  been  unfortunate 
in  business,  and  were  unable  to  pay  their  debts,  to  make  over  to 
their  wives  such  property  as  they  had  left,  and  so  the  creditors 
could  lay  no  claim  to  it.  Sometimes,  too,  the  wife  chose  to  have 
her  property  managed  by  a  procurator,  or  an  attorney,  instead  of 
by  her  husband.  Such  an  agent  not  unfrequently  proved  dishon- 
est, and  squandered  the  property  confided  to  him,  or,  what  was 
far  worse,  became,  in  a  bad  sense,  the  wife's  confidential  friend. 
One  of  Martial's  most  pointed  epigrams  turns  upon  a  relation  of 
this  kind.  Let  me  give  a  version  of  it.  "  Who  is  that  curled  lit- 
tle fellow,  my  good  Marianus,  who  always  keeps  so  close  to  your 
wife,  who  has  his  arm  about  her  chair,  and  seems  to  be  whisper- 
ing something  soft  in  her  ear  ?  Who  is  the  fellow,  pray  ?  "  "  Oh, 
that  is  my  wife's  attorney,"  is  the  reply;  "he  manages  her  affairs." 
"Ah,  an  attorney ;  yes,  that  is  plain  enough,  I  see ;  but  whose  at- 
torney, that 's  the  question ;  let  me  tell  you  now,  he  's  your  attor- 
ney, not  your  wife's ;  and  not  her  affairs  he  manages,  but  your 
own,  my  blind  friend." 

As  another  result  of  such  an  independent  position,  it  sometimes 
happened  that  women  who  together  with  riches  could  boast  of 
a  long  line  of  noble  ancestors  usurped  the  exclusive  control  of 
household  affairs,  and  ruled  their  husbands  as  well  as  their  chil- 
dren and  servants.  The  poets  are  full  of  illustrations  of  this 
phase  of  Roman  life.  It  was  found  that  women  who  carried  the 
purse  managed  also  to  get  and  keep  the  reins  in  the  house.  Juve- 
nal tells  us  that  in  such  a  case  the  "  hoc  volo,  sic  jubeo  "  of  the 
wife  was  the  ultimate  reason  of  all  things.  Horace  counts  it  a 
blessed  thing  in  the  barbarism  of  the  Scythians,  that  there  "  no 
dowered  wife  rules  the  husband  ;  "  and  Martial,  when  asked  why 
he  did  not  marry  a  rich  wife,  answered,  "  Because  I  don't  want 
to  become  the  wife  of  my  wife." 

Outside  of  her  own  home  the  position  of  the  Roman  woman  of 
this  time  was  also  one  of  great  freedom.  Though  in  earlier  times 


386  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

the  domestic  virtues  of  a  Roman  matron  were  of  chief  value,  yet 
even  then  she  was  never  kept  in  seclusion.  Even  in  the  last  age 
of  the  republic,  Nepos,  while  comparing  Greek  and  Roman  man- 
ners, asks,  "  What  Roman  hesitates  to  take  his  wife  with  him  to 
a  party  ?  or  what  Roman  matron  do  we  not  see  holding  the  first 
place  in  her  own  home,  and  also  mingling  in  general  society  ?  " 
But  the  far  freer  manners  of  the  empire  widened  to  the  utmost 
limits  the  old  usages,  and  women  were  not  only  present  with  men 
at  banquets  and  general  parties,  but  visited  all  places  of  public 
amusement,  as  the  circus,  the  theatre,  and  the  amphitheatre.  In- 
troduced thus  at  once  at  marriage  under  such  conditions  as  these 
into  the  great  world  of  Roman  life,  the  Roman  woman  of  rank 
was  exposed  to  a  moral  ordeal  always  most  perilous,  and  often 
fatal  to  personal  character.  Allurements  and  temptations  beset 
her  every  step,  and  disturbing  and  corrupting  influences  poured 
in  upon  her  from  all  sides.  In  her  own  house,  which  of  itself 
was  a  little  world  with  its  extended  possessions,  its  legions  of 
slaves,  its  numerous  train  of  clients  and  dependents,  she  was 
greeted  and  acknowledged  as  domina  and  even  regina,  and  there 
her  will  was  absolute  law.  In  society  she  saw  men  paying  court 
to  her,  young  and  old,  scholars  and  soldiers,  the  wealthy  and 
the  high-born,  all  vying  with  one  another  for  her  favor.  What- 
ever claims  to  admiration  she  might  have,  whether  beauty,  or 
grace  of  manners,  or  talents,  or  culture,  were  sure  to  win  brilliant 
recognition.  In  the  circles  in  which  she  moved,  vanity,  love  of 
pleasure,  ambition,  might  be  fully  gratified  ;  intrigues  had  fullest 
scope  of  opportunity,  passion  the  strongest  excitements,  coquetry 
the  utmost  variety  of  subject.  "  Nothing,"  says  the  philosopher 
Seneca,  "  was  secure  in  such  an  ordeal ;  whatever  and  whoever  it 
may  be  is  in  some  way  and  at  some  moment  assailed  and  carried." 
Let  us  unfold  this  general  view  into  some  particular  illustrations. 
The  institution  of  slavery  had  now  at  Rome,  as  always  and  every- 
where, a  most  pernicious  influence  on  the  morality  of  domestic  and 
married  life.  The  prevailing  low  estimate  in  which  the  common 
house  slaves  were  held  as  beings  hardly  belonging  to  the  human 
race  was  so  demoralizing  that  young  and  gentle  women  could 
come  to  treat  them,  without  compunction,  with  wanton  and  even 
brutal  cruelty.  If  we  are  to  give  historical  value  to  the  pictures 
drawn  by  Ovid  and  Martial  and  Juvenal  of  every-day  dressing- 
room  scenes  in  Roman  mansions,  we  must  believe  that  the  poor 
female  slaves  were  liable,  even  for  the  pettiest  mistake  or  over- 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  387 

sight  in  the  grand  business  of  the  toilette,  not  only  to  be  petu- 
lantly abused  by  the  sharp  finger-nails  and  violent  hands  of  their 
mistresses,  but  to  be  lashed  to  blood  and  even  to  death  by  pro- 
fessional scourgers  and  executioners.  Ovid  in  one  place  begs  his 
fair  readers  never  in  a  fit  of  ill-huinor  to  scratch  the  faces  of  their 
slaves,  or  to  stick  the  hair-pins  into  their  neck  and  breast ;  and 
in  another  he  praises  the  clemency  of  Corinna,  in  that  her  hair- 
dresser never  went  from  her  with  arms  all  swollen  and  bloody 
from  the  cruel  pins.  But  such  treatment  was  only  gentle  when 
compared  with  the  atrocities  described  by  other  writers.  Hadrian 
is  said  to  have  banished  a  woman  who  shockingly  maltreated  her 
female  slaves.  It  was  the  class  to  which  this  criminal  belonged 
which  Juvenal  describes  in  his  Sixth  Satire.  From  this  Satire, 
which  is  devoted  to  the  condition  and  life  of  the  women  of  his 
time,  I  give  one  passage,  in  Gifford's  words :  — 

"  There  are  who  hire  a  beadle  by  the  year, 
To  lash  their  female  slaves,  who  pleased  to  hear 
The  eternal  thong,  bid  him  lay  on,  while  they 
At  perfect  ease,  the  silk-man's  stores  survey, 
Chat  with  their  female  gossips,  or  replace 
The  cracked  enamel  on  their  treacherous  face. 
No  respite  yet.     They  leisurely  hum  o'er 
The  countless  items  of  the  day  before, 
And  bid  him  still  lay  on  ;  till  faint  with  toil, 
He  drops  the  scourge,  when  with  a  rancorous  smile, 
'  Begone,'  they  thunder  in  a  horrid  tone, 
'  Now  your  accounts  are  settled,  rogues,  begone.'  " 

But  slavery  ministered  to  other  passions  no  less  ruinous  to 
morals  through  the  male  slaves  who  served  in  various  ways  in  a 
Roman  house  as  cooks  and  waiters,  as  messengers,  and  as  lecticarii 
or  chair-men.  These  were  often  in  great  request,  and  brought  high 
prices  for  their  beauty  and  their  intelligence  and  accomplishments. 
Slaves  and  freedmen  were  also  attached  to  a  house  more  or  less 
directly  as  moriones  or  jesters,  or  as  musicians,  or  as  pantomime 
players,  or  athletes  and  gladiators.  Already  in  earlier  times  the 
conjugal  infidelity  of  men  was  often  a  consequence  of  slavery, 
and  now  with  the  growing  license  in  morals  the  women  claimed 
and  used  the  right  of  retaliation  upon  their  lords. 

Other  influences  there  were  no  less  corrupting  in  Roman  society. 
Perhaps  among  them  might  be  reckoned  the  reading  of  some  of 
the  literature  of  the  times ;  and  yet  such  productions  as  Ovid's 
"  Elegies  "  and  "  The  Art  of  Loving,"  poems  no  less  vicious  in 


388  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

their  complexion  and  tone  than  exquisite  in  their  finish  of  num- 
bers and  diction,  were  rather  symptoms  than  causes  of  the  pre- 
vailing corruption.  More  direct  and  more  general  were  the  evil 
influences  of  the  fine  arts  in  painting  and  sculpture,  in  interior 
decorations,  and  in  trinkets  and  domestic  utensils  of  all  kinds.  In 
one  of  his  elegies  Propertius  bitterly  complains  of  "  the  hand  that 
was  the  first  to  paint  obscene  pictures  and  put  base  sights  in  a 
chaste  home."  "  Such  an  one,"  he  says,  "  corrupted  the  ingenu- 
ous eyes  of  virgins,  and  would  fain  have  them  versed  in  his  own 
iniquity."  The  Museum  at  Naples  and  the  unearthed  Pompeii 
from  which  it  was  filled  are  a  full,  yet  extant  commentary  of  the 
poet's  words.  Two  prolific  sources  of  immoral  influence  Tacitus 
mentions  in  a  significant  passage.  In  his  description  of  the  wo- 
men of  the  rude  Germans  he  says,  with  grave  reflection  upon  his 
own  countrywomen,  "  Thus  then  they  live,  their  virtue  guarded, 
corrupted  by  no  allurements  of  theatres,  no  excitements  of  social 
banquets."  The  passion  for  public  shows  was  a  marked  charac- 
teristic of  the  Roman  women  of  this  time.  Thither  they  came,  as 
Ovid  says  in  an  often  quoted  passage,  "to  see  and  to  be  seen," 
"  like  thick  swarming  bees,  our  women  crowd  the  theatre,  all  in 
their  gayest  attire ; "  and  he  adds  in  a  comprehensive  word,  "  that 
place  has  always  had  its  losses  of  virtue  ever  since  the  first  shows 
of  Romulus  and  the  rape  of  the  Sabine  women."  Propertius  con- 
gratulates a  female  acquaintance  that  she  is  going  into  the  coun- 
try where  she  will  be  away  from  the  seductions  of  the  theatre  and 
of  the  circus.  At  the  latter  place,  since  Augustus'  time,  women 
might  sit  with  men,  while  at  the  theatre  and  amphitheatre  the 
sexes  were  obliged  to  sit  apart.  Indeed,  Augustus  excluded  wo- 
men entirely  from  the  performances  of  wrestlers,  and  so  punctili- 
ous was  he  on  this  head,  that  in  the  great  games  he  exhibited  on 
his  accession  to  the  office  of  chief  pontiff,  he  put  off  till  the  next 
day  the  fight  of  a  pair  of  combatants  which  the  people  called  be- 
fore, and  made  known  his  will  by  proclamation,  that  no  woman 
should  appear  till  after  this  part  of  the  show  was  over.  Probably 
the  circus,  with  all  the  excitements  of  the  races,  furnished  more 
innocent  holiday  shows  than  the  theatre  and  the  amphitheatre. 
The  bloody  fights  and  encounters  with  wild  beasts  were  no  less 
fatal  to  gladiators  and  martyrs  than  they  were  deadening  and 
deadly  to  the  sensibilities  and  humanities,  especially  of  woman. 
But  the  low  comedies  and  broad  farces  of  the  stage  which  were 
the  passion  of  the  masses,  and  the  more  artistic  but  far  more  Keen- 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  389 

tious  pantomime  dances,  the  pet  delidce  of  the  higher  classes,  were 
full  of  motive  to  sensual  excitements  and  passions.  The  allure- 
ments of  convivial  occasions  Tacitus  coupled  with  those  of  the 
public  spectacles ;  for  at  these  luxurious  scenes  similar  influences 
prevailed,  as  music  and  dance  and  theatricals  were  the  usual 
means  of  entertainment.  Here,  as  Quintilian  says,  chaste  ears 
must  needs  listen  to  unchaste  songs,  and  things  shameful  to  speak 
of  are  seen,  dances  of  Syrian  or  Andalusian  girls,  which  rival  in 
voluptuous  wantonness  the  worst  pantomime  performances  of  the 
stage.  All  writers  agree  in  their  testimony  to  a  general  tendency 
to  immorality  of  women  as  of  men,  as  the  results  of  such  causes 
as  these  which  were  at  work  in  Roman  society.  The  pathetic 
verses  of  Horace,  the  sad  complaints  of  Propertius,  and  the  bold 
jests  of  Ovid,  all  agree  with  the  debates  in  the  senate  and  with 
the  legislation  of  Augustus  in  bearing  witness  to  the  contempt 
and  violation  of  marriage  ties,  and  the  prevalence  of  licentious 
living.  Horace,  coming  to  the  aid  of  Augustus,  declares  that  the 
age  fruitful  in  crime  first  polluted  wedlock  and  offspring  and 
home,  and  from  this  fountain  flowed  a  stream  of  poison  over  the 
whole  country  and  people.  Propertius  asks,  "  Of  what  avail  are 
temples  of  Chastity  if  it  is  allowed  any  wife  to  be  whatever  she 
may  please  ?  "  And  Ovid  joins  in  with  his  sneer,  "  Chaste  only 
are  the  women  who  have  never  been  wooed,  and  quite  too  rustic 
are  the  men  and  innocent  of  Roman  usage  who  fret  over  an  un- 
faithful spouse."  The  younger  Seneca  declares,  "  that  it  has  now 
gone  so  far  that  women  have  husbands  only  to  attract  lovers ;  that 
they  divide  the  day  among  their  lovers,  and  the  hours  of  the  day 
are  not  enough.  An  affair  with  only  one  lover  our  women  con- 
temptuously call  marriage,  and  she  who  does  not  know  that  is 
styled  simple  and  old-fashioned."  It  is  a  bitter  taunt  of  Tacitus 
against  Roman  vice,  when  he  says  of  the  Germans,  "  there  no  one 
laughs  at  vices,  nor  is  it  called  the  fashion  of  the  age  to  corrupt 
and  to  be  corrupted."  Martial's  epigrammatic  word,  "  no  woman 
in  the  whole  city  says  No,"  and  Juvenal's  descriptions  in  his  Sixth 
Satire,  exaggerated  as  they  doubtless  are,  must  yet  have  rested  on 
a  basis  of  truth.  The  levity  with  which  the  marriage  tie  was 
joined  and  the  frequency  and  ease  by  which  it  was  broken  in 
divorce  are  of  themselves  a  testimony  to  the  immorality  of  the 
times.  Seneca  declares  that  there  were  women  who  reckoned 
the  years,  not  by  the  successive  consuls,  but  by  their  successive 
husbands ;  and  Juvenal  savagely  says  that  "  many  a  woman  gets 


390  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

divorced  before  the  laurel  branches  have  faded  that  decked  her 
wedding  threshold."  The  Julian  laws,  though  they  were  designed 
to  repress  looseness  of  morals,  yet  by  their  practical  working  were 
sometimes  the  direct  causes  of  these  divorces  and  swift  succeeding 
marriages.  Martial  has  a  strange  epigram  on  this  head :  "  Since 
the  Julian  law,"  he  says,  "  was  reenacted,  it  is  either  less,  or  cer- 
tainly not  more,  than  thirty  days,  and  here  is  Madame  Telesina 
just  married  to  her  tenth  husband.  Whoever,"  he  adds,  "  mar- 
ries so  many  times  does  not  marry  at  all ;  she  is  an  adulteress  by 
law.''  Such  words  may  be  either  bitter  or  jesting  exaggerations, 
but  the  reality  must  have  been  signally  bad.  A  long  list,  indeed, 
might  be  easily  made  of  the  many  divorces  known  in  history  in 
the  lives  of  persons  of  the  highest  rank,  in  imperial  families,  and 
in  court  life.  Augustus  himself  was  twice  divorced,  first  from 
Claudia,  Antony's  step-daughter,  whom  he  put  away  on  account 
of  a  quarrel  with  his  mother-in-law.  He  then  married  Scribonia, 
who  herself  had  been  twice  married  to  men  of  consular  rank.  On 
divorcing  her,  he  immediately  married  Livia,  then  the  wife  of  Ti- 
berius Nero,  first  compelling  Tiberius  to  divorce  her.  The  old 
and  the  new  husband  and  their  common  wife  sat  down  together 
at  the  marriage  supper.  Antony,  too,  divorced  Octavia,  the  sister 
of  Augustus,  on  account  of  his  passion  for  Cleopatra.  The  Em- 
peror Claudius  was  twice  divorced ;  I  may  add  that  his  third  wife, 
the  notorious  Valeria  Messalina,  he  murdered,  a  fate  she  richly 
deserved ;  but  in  his  turn  he  was  himself  poisoned  to  death  by  his 
fourth  wife,  Agrippina,  who  was  his  niece.  Nero  divorced  his 
young  and  virtuous  wife  Octavia  in  order  to  marry  the  infamous 
Poppaea ;  this  second  wife  he  killed  by  his  brutal  treatment ;  he 
then  proposed  to  marry  Octavia,  the  daughter  of  Claudius  and  his 
sister  by  adoption,  and  on  her  refusal  he  put  her  to  death.  It  is 
refreshing  to  turn  from  such  records  of  imperial  profligacy  to  the 
instance  preserved  to  us  by  Dion  Cassius  of  the  long  and  virtuous 
and  happy  married  life  of  the  Consul  Lucretius  Vespillo.  We 
have  it  in  Vespillo's  own  words,  written  on  the  decease  of  his  wife : 
"  Seldom  are  there  marriages  of  so  long  continuance,  and  dissolved, 
not  by  divorce,  but  only  by  death ;  for  to  us  it  was  granted  that 
ours  continued  without  reproach  to  the  forty-first  year."  I  have 
just  alluded  to  the  profligate  example  in  married  life  of  the  Em- 
peror Augustus,  though  what  I  have  mentioned  does  not  cover  the 
half  of  the  profligacy  of  this  example.  But  it  belongs  more  di- 
rectly to  this  part  of  my  subject  to  remark,  that  it  was  the  emper- 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  391 

or's  doom  to  have  in  his  only  daughter  Julia,  and  in  her  daughter 
of  the  same  name,  signal  and  notorious  instances  of  the  profligacy 
of  the  women  of  the  time,  "Even-handed  justice  thus  commending 
to  his  own  lips  the  ingredients  of  his  poisoned  chalice."  His 
daughter  Julia  had  been  educated  with  the  utmost  strictness,  under 
the  constant  supervision  of  her  father,  her  studies  pursued  under 
the  best  teachers,  alternating  with  the  labors  of  the  loom  and  the 
needle.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  she  was  married  to  her  cousin,  the 
young  Marcellus,  whose  early  death,  consecrated  by  the  verse  of 
Virgil,  was  a  keen  disappointment  to  Augustus,  and  the  lamenta- 
tion of  all  Rome.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  she  was  married  to  the 
celebrated  Marcus  Agrippa,  who  was,  in  order  to  this  marriage, 
obliged  by  the  emperor  to  put  away  his  wife  Marcella,  the  niece 
of  the  emperor ;  and  eleven  years  later,  on  the  death  of  Agrippa, 
to  whom  she  bore  two  daughters  and  three  sons,  she  was  married 
a  third  time,  when  twenty-seven,  and  now  to  Tiberius,  Livia's  eld- 
est son,  who  was  also  obliged,  for  this  purpose,  to  divorce  his  wife 
Vipsania  (who  was  the  daughter  of  Agrippa  by  a  former  consort), 
and  to  whom  he  was  strongly  attached.  Doubtless  these  mar- 
riages, entered  into  from  no  choice  of  her  own,  but  only  from  con- 
siderations of  family  and  policy  on  the  part  of  her  father,  were 
most  demoralizing  to  herself.  Distinguished  for  her  beauty  and 
her  winning  and  elegant  manners,  and  no  less  for  her  mental  gifts 
and  attainments,  and  especially  her  quick  and  lively  wit,  skilled, 
too,  in  the  now  Roman  accomplishments  of  song  and  dance, — with 
these  brilliant  personal  and  social  qualities,  enhancing  her  claims 
of  birth  and  rank  as  the  daughter  of  the  emperor  and  the  wife  of 
the  first  soldier  of  the  time,  she  rose  at  once,  a  bright  and  glitter- 
ing figure,  into  that  elevated  sphere  of  Roman  society  where  she 
was  destined  to  move  and  shine  for  a  while,  and  then  to  fall  into 
darkness  and  ruin.  Young  and  full  of  spirits,  fond  of  pleasure 
and  excitement,  proudly  conscious  of  the  power  she  could  wield 
by  her  position  as  well  as  by  her  personal  attractions,  she  courted 
the  admiration  she  could  not  fail  to  excite,  and  surrounded  ever 
by  Roman  youth  as  dissolute  in  heart  and  life  as  they  were  noble 
in  birth  and  accomplished  in  manners,  she  lapsed  soon,  through 
easy  transitions  of  levities  and  indiscretions  in  speech  and  conduct, 
into  intrigues  and  vices,  which  became  known  to  all  Rome,  and 
were  talked  of  by  every  idle  tongue,  though  they  escaped  the  ob- 
servation of  her  indulgent  father.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  he  would 
chide  her  love  of  display  and  her  too  free  style  of  dress  as  well  as 


392  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

manners  in  company,  but  she  knew  how  to  ply  him  with  flattering 
arts  and  win  back  his  favor.  It  is  related,  when  she  once  ap- 
peared in  his  presence  most  brilliantly  attired,  he  gave  evident 
signs  of  his  displeasure,  though  he  said  not  a  word.  The  next 
day  she  appeared  in  the  most  decorous  habiliments  of  a  grave  Ro- 
man matron,  when  he  at  once  exclaimed,  that  now  she  was  adorned 
as  became  the  daughter  of  Caesar.  She  archly  replied :  "  To-day 
I  am  dressed  to  please  my  father ;  yesterday  I  thought  to  please 
my  husband."  When  once  she  was  told  how  far  her  manners 
were  removed  from  the  simplicity  of  her  father's,  she  replied : 
"  Yes,  he  forgets  that  he  is  Caesar ;  I  can  never  even  remember 
that  I  am  Caesar's  daughter."  But  too  soon,  by  a  steep  descent 
in  vice,  she  reached  the  lowest  excesses;  and  these,  if  we  may 
credit  such  writers  as  Seneca  and  Suetonius,  were  no  less  open 
than  profligate,  and  indulged  in  with  companions  taken  indiffer- 
ently from  the  lowest  and  the  highest  orders  in  Rome.  With 
such  guilty  companions  she  traversed  the  streets  by  night,  and 
even  the  Forum  and  the  rostra  were  the  scenes  of  her  orgies. 
When  at  last  the  revelations  of  her  depravity  burst  full  upon  her 
father,  he  visited  upon  her  the  utmost  severity  of  retribution. 
Passing  all  bounds  of  discretion,  as  well  as  of  self-respect,  he  sent 
in  a  message  to  the  senate,  openly  proclaiming  the  guilty  conduct 
of  his  daughter,  and  declaring  against  her  an  act  of  banishment 
to  a  barren  island  off  the  coast  of  Campania.  There  for  five  years 
she  was  doomed  to  live,  her  mother,  the  long  ago  divorced  Scribo- 
nia,  alone  sharing  her  exile,  and  she  was  scarcely  allowed  the  ordi- 
nary comforts  of  life.  She  was  afterward  removed  to  Rhegium, 
but  kept  still  in  close  confinement  and  distress.  Her  father's  in- 
dignation against  her  continued  to  the  last  day  of  his  life,  his  last 
will  and  testament  denying  her  all  share  in  his  estate,  and  his  un- 
fortunate but  guilty  daughter  died  soon  after  himself  of  a  wasting 
consumption,  hastened  by  grief  and  want.  It  was  an  aggravation 
of  the  grief  of  Augustus  in  his  last  years,  that  his  daughter's 
daughter,  the  second  Julia,  inheriting  the  evil  blood  of  her  mother, 
followed  her  with  a  perverse  emulation  in  her  downward  path  of 
vicious  indulgence,  and  came  to  a  like  disgraceful  end.  Her  loose- 
ness of  life  became  at  last  such  a  scandal  to  the  imperial  house, 
that  she  was  banished  by  the  emperor  to  a  little  island  off  the 
coast  of  Apulia.  Suetonius  relates  that  Augustus,  on  any  mention 
of  these  two  Julias,  was  wont  to  exclaim  in  the  words  of  Homer, 
"  Would  I  had  died  without  a  wife  or  child."  A  yet  more  noto- 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  393 

riously  bad  name  of  this  time  is  that  of  Agrippina  the  second,  the 
granddaughter  of  the  first  Julia,  the  evil  thus  reappearing  in  the 
third  generation.  After  the  death  of  her  second  husband,  whom 
she  was  believed  to  have  poisoned,  she  became  notorious  for  her 
scandalous  amours,  no  less  than  for  her  intriguing  ambition.  For 
one  of  her  intrigues  she  was  banished  by  the  emperor.  She  was 
afterward  restored  on  the  accession  of  her  uncle,  the  Emperor 
Claudius,  over  whom  she  soon  gained,  by  her  fascinations,  so  pow- 
erful an  influence  that  he  put  his  wife  to  death  and  married  her, 
having  the  marriage  with  her,  as  his  niece,  legalized  by  a  decree 
of  the  senate.  Five  years  later,  after  a  series  of  horrid  murders, 
she  got  rid  of  the  old  emperor  by  poisoning  him,  through  the  aid 
of  the  notorious  Locusta.  She  thus  brought  to  the  throne  her  son 
Nero,  who  had  been  adopted  by  Claudius  to  the  prejudice  of  his 
own  son  Britannicus.  She  at  last  became  so  odious  even  to  Nero 
by  her  crimes  as  well  as  her  state  intrigues  that  by  his  orders  she 
was  murdered.  But  even  a  worse  woman  than  this  Agrippina, 
and  the  last  of  this  class  which  I  will  mention,  was  Valeria  Messa- 
lina,  who  was  the  immediate  predecessor  of  Agrippina  as  the  wife 
of  Claudius.  Alike  by  the  pen  of  history  and  of  satire  is  her 
character  drawn  in  the  darkest  colors.  Avaricious,  cruel,  impla- 
cable, ambitious,  her  vicious  nature  culminated  in  vileness  not  to 
be  described.  But  this  dark  side  of  the  picture  of  the  times  is 
relieved  by  eminent  examples  of  female  virtue.  These  are  found, 
too,  in  the  same  elevated  circles,  and  often  in  the  same  families  as 
those  I  have  mentioned.  Such  was  Agrippina  the  first,  the  sister 
of  the  second  Julia,  and  the  daughter  of  the  first  Julia.  She  was 
the  wife  of  Germanicus,  a  name  honored  and  loved  by  the  Romans 
alike  for  his  eminent  virtues,  talents,  and  services,  and  in  his  sad 
and  premature  death  illustrating  what  Tacitus  finely  calls  "  the 
brief  and  ill-starred  loves  of  the  Roman  people."  Agrippina  was 
in  all  respects  worthy  of  her  noble  consort ;  gifted  in  mind  and 
endowed  in  character  with  all  the  qualities  of  a  Roman  matron,  a 
spotless  chastity,  a  love  for  her  husband  sincere  and  lasting,  and 
a  sympathy  with  all  his  great  designs,  and  a  true  mother's  tender 
and  watchful  love  for  her  children.  The  picture  drawn  by  Tacitus 
of  her  reception  by  consuls,  senate,  and  the  whole  Roman  people 
when  she  arrived  at  the  gates  of  the  city,  accompanied  by  her  chil- 
dren, and  bearing  in  her  arms  the  urn  of  her  husband's  ashes,  is 
one  of  the  most  touching  and  impressive  in  all  his  "Annals ; "  and 
what  fastens  to  it  most  of  all  the  interest  of  every  beholder  is  the 


394  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

reverent  love  conspicuous  in  every  face  in  that  gathered  crowd  for 
the  bereaved  widow,  mingled  with  profound  regret  for  the  death 
of  her  brave  and  virtuous  husband.  Such  examples,  also,  were 
Antonia,  the  sister  of  Marcus  Antonius,  and  Octavia,  his  wife, 
women  of  whom  the  dissolute  triumvir  was  never  worthy.  The 
fortitude  and  dignified  reserve  with  which  Octavia  bore  her  hus- 
band's infidelities  and  her  tender,  undying  grief  for  her  lost  Mar- 
cellus  are  only  single  traits  of  her  noble  character.  Her  beauty 
vied  with  her  virtue  in  winning  and  securing  to  the  end  of  her 
unhappy  life  the  admiration  of  the  Roman  people.  Plutarch  char- 
acterizes her  as  "  the  marvel  of  the  sex."  She  had  worthy  succes- 
sors in  her  own  family  in  her  daughters,  the  Antoniae,  and  in  her 
niece,  also  named  Antonia,  and  in  Octavia,  her  great-granddaugh- 
ter, all  of  whom  were  admired  in  their  time  for  their  exalted  char- 
acter. To  these  names  may  be  added  those  I  have  already  alluded 
to  as  belonging  to  an  humbler,  but  no  less  noble  class  of  Roman 
women,  Domitia  Decidiana,  the  wife  of  Agricola,  and  their  daugh- 
ter, the  wife  of  Tacitus ;  and  others  doubtless  there  were  of  the 
same  class  in  society,  who,  if  they  had  become  known  to  fame  by 
like  fortunes,  would  now  shine  with  like  lustre  as  virtuous  orna- 
ments of  their  sex. 

I  have  hardly  left  myself  sufficient  time  and  space  to  illustrate 
the  influence  exerted  by  the  Roman  women  of  this  time  in  other 
spheres  of  life.  In  the  freedom  and  independence  which  was 
allowed  them  there  was  a  temptation  to  some  of  a  coarser  nature 
to  strive  for  distinctions  uncongenial  to  their  sex,  and  to  engage 
in  occupations  at  war  with  any  just  conceptions  of  womanly  char- 
acter. Such  as  these  were  doubtless  few,  though  they  are  men- 
tioned by  Juvenal,  —  women  who  were  ambitious  of  excelling 
in  feats  of  strength,  as  gymnastics  or  gladiatorial  fights,  or  spent 
their  nights  in  carousing,  or  who  as  litigious  women  took  kindly 
to  prosecutions,  and  themselves  prepared  the  indictments  and  argu- 
ments. But  the  ambition  of  women  of  eminent  abilities  took  a 
higher  and  nobler  flight ;  they  coveted  and  often  gained  immense 
influence  in  politics  and  public  life.  The  destinies  of  the  Roman 
world  were  not  seldom  determined  by  such  women,  many  an  em- 
press ruling  in  the  name  of  her  consort,  and  others  of  less  exalted 
rank  having  an  active  and  most  important  part  in  the  affairs  of 
state.  Augustus  himself  was  often  controlled  in  his  measures  by 
Li  via,  who  was  called  by  her  grandson  Caligula  "  a  Ulysses  in 
woman's  dress."  In  her  early  youth  she  easily  won  Octavian  by 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  395 

her  beauty  and  her  fascinating  manners ;  and  it  may  be  said 
of  her,  that,  unlike  many  other  Roman  women  of  such  personal 
charms,  she  never  tried  to  win  any  one  else;  but  the  influence 
which  she  thus  gained  was  afterward  surpassed  in  duration  and 
power  by  that  which  she  acquired  over  him  when  he  had  become 
the  Emperor  Augustus,  by  her  force  of  intellect,  her  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  and  especially  her  perfect  knowledge  of  her  hus- 
band's character.  Her  ambition  was  bent  upon  securing  the  suc- 
cession to  her  son  Tiberius,  and  so  to  her  own  family ;  but  she  had 
formidable  obstacles  to  contend  with  in  the  preference  of  Augus- 
tus for  his  own  family  in  the  persons  of  his  sister's  children  and 
later  the  children  of  his  daughter  Julia.  She  shrewdly  laid  her 
plans,  and  though  often  disappointed,  yet  never  lost  sight  of  them, 
and  retaining  through  all  vicissitudes  an  unbounded  influence  over 
Augustus,  she  at  last  got  rid  of  all  rivals,  and  secured  the  succes- 
sion to  her  son  Tiberius.  On  the  death  of  Augustus  and  the  suc- 
cession of  Tiberius,  she  was  adopted  by  the  emperor's  will  into 
the  Julian  Gens,  and  received  by  consequence  the  name  of  Julia 
Augusta.  For  several  years  she  was  the  real  sovereign,  though 
acting  in  the  name  of  Tiberius,  and  finally  the  senate  were  propos- 
ing to  confer  upon  her  extraordinary  honors ;  her  son,  however, 
was  now  roused  to  jealousy  of  his  mother's  position  and  influence, 
and  commanded  her  retirement  from  public  affairs.  Still  to  the 
last  she  maintained  her  ascendency  over  Tiberius,  and  only  the 
feebleness  of  age  brought  to  an  end  her  practical  sovereignty. 
She  died  at  the  advanced  age  of  eighty-six,  after  having  had  for 
more  than  sixty  years,  as  the  wife  of  Tiberius  Claudius,  the  im- 
perial spouse  of  Augustus,  and  the  mother  of  the  Emperor  Tibe- 
rius, a  larger  share  of  actual  power  in  the  Roman  government 
than  any  other  individual  in  the  state.  In  carrying  out  her  ambi- 
tious plans,  Li  via  had  long  a  powerful  rival  in  the  emperor's 
sister  Octavia,  who  was  also  a  woman  of  conspicuous  ability  in 
Roman  politics.  She  defeated  Livia  in  her  two  successive  efforts 
for  the  promotion  of  Tiberius,  the  first  time  when  she  gained 
Julia  as  the  wife  of  her  son  Marcellus,  and  the  second  time  after 
Marcellus'  death  by  inducing  Augustus  to  marry  the  young  widow 
to  Agrippa  rather  than  to  Tiberius.  In  the  earlier  years  of  her 
wedded  life,  before  Marcus  Antonius  was  infatuated  by  the  Egyp- 
tian queen,  she  rendered  important  service  to  the  state  by  averting 
through  her  intervention  the  misunderstandings  which  constantly 
were  arising  between  Antonius  and  Octavius.  The  strong  hold 


396  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

which  she  had  upon  the  admiring  and  even  fond  love  of  the 
Roman  people  she  kept  to  the  end  of  her  life,  and  at  her  death 
her  memory  was  honored  by  a  public  funeral,  the  first  instance  in 
Koman  history  of  such  a  distinction  conferred  upon  a  woman. 
The  name  of  Maecenas  is  familiar  to  all,  not  only  as  a  patron  of 
letters,  but  also  as  the  most  influential  of  the  emperor's  ministers. 
In  a  long  course  of  years  he  gave  direction  in  many  ways  to  the 
affairs  of  the  state,  but  one  is  here  reminded  again  of  the  word 
of  Cato,  for  Maecenas  was  ever  under  the  domination  of  his  wife 
Terentia  hardly  less  in  all  his  state  policy  than  in  his  personal  and 
domestic  affairs.  She  had  also  by  her  personal  charms  and  vig- 
orous mind  a  commanding  influence  over  Augustus  himself,  whose 
intimacy  with  her  was  a  perpetual  source  of  jealous  irritation  to 
her  fond  husband.  His  married  life  was  a  constant  succession  of 
quarrels  and  reconciliations,  a  fact  which  elicited  Seneca's  witty 
remark,  that  Maecenas  married  a  thousand  times,  but  every  time 
the  same  woman.  But  of  the  Roman  women  who  moved  in  the 
higher  circles  of  society,  far  more  were  interested  in  the  pursuits 
of  literature,  and  especially  of  poetry,  than  in  political  affairs. 
Doubtless  many  only  affected  a  love  of  poetry,  and  aimed  rather 
to  shine,  it  may  be,  as  some  of  the  satirical  writers  declare,  by 
superficial  attainments  than  to  gain  real  acquisitions  in  knowledge 
and  permanent  literary  tastes.  Thus  Ovid  writes-:  "  Poems  are 
praised,  but  yet  great  fortunes  are  sought ;  if  only  he  be  rich,  a 
very  barbarian  pleases.  Yet  lettered  girls  there  are,  though  a 
quite  select  set ;  the  crowd  are  not  lettered,  but  they  would  fain 
seem  so."  Plutarch  mentions  that  a  philosophical  work  was  dedi- 
cated to  Octavia,  the  sister  of  Augustus,  on  account  of  her  interest 
in  learned  studies ;  and  Macrobius  mentions  among  the  attractions 
of  the  emperor's  daughter  Julia  "  a  love  of  letters  and  much  eru- 
dition." The  wife  of  the  tragic  poet  Varius  is  described  as  a 
woman  of  high  cultivation. 

It  was  the  fortune  of  Ovid  to  have  a  daughter  who  inherited 
her  father's  poetic  gifts,  and  who  elicited  from  him  glad  words  of 
praise  for  her  own  efforts  in  verse.  From  his  distant  and  lonely 
exile  on  the  sliores  of  the  Euxine,  whither  he  was  banished  by 
the  Emperor  Augustus,  —  for  what  cause  the  world  never  knew,  — 
he  wrote  her  a  poetical  epistle  which  has  come  down  to  us,  a  bright 
gem  that  throws  its  rays  of  light  over  the  prevailing  darkness  of 
his  "  Tristia."  He  tells  her  of  his  fancy  that  the  letter  will  find 
her  at  home  sitting  with  her  sweet  mother,  or  in  the  midst  of  her 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  397 

books  and  the  Muses.  For  himself  he  is  still  living,  and  from  his 
ever-enduring  misfortunes  he,  too,  turns  to  the  Muses  and  weaves 
his  sad  thoughts  and  his  fond  memories  of  home  and  family  into 
elegiac  verse.  "  Are  you,  too,  my  daughter,  still  clinging  to  our 
common  studies,  and  singing  your  songs,  now  unheard  by  your  ab- 
sent father  ?  For  Nature  gave  you  with  chaste  manners  rare  gifts 
of  genius.  So  long  as  the  Fates  allowed,  you  were  wont  to  read 
your  poems  to  me,  and  I  mine  to  you ;  often  was  I  your  critic, 
oftener  your  teacher.  It  may  be  that  your  father's  fate  as  a  poet 
is  deterring  you  from  poetry.  But  fear  not ;  be  of  good  courage, 
go  on,  devote  yourself  to  beautiful  letters ;  all  else,  personal  beauty, 
riches,  fortune  are  fleeting  and  pass  away ;  nothing  do  we  hold 
that  is  not  mortal  save  only  the  good  things  of  heart  and  mind. 
I  even,  torn  from  you,  from  home,  from  country,  have  yet  my 
genius  for  company.  Even  Caesar  could  have  no  power  over  that ; 
and  when  all  my  sad  days  are  gone,  my  poetic  fame  shall  live." 
Strange  that  a  poet  who  could  write  such  high  thoughts  could 
have  ever  descended  to  the  "  Amores  "  and  the  "  Ars  Amandi  "  ! 
In  a  letter  of  the  younger  Pliny  his  wife  is  described  as  a  woman 
of  literary  culture,  and  though  not  an  author  herself,  yet  inter- 
ested in  all  her  husband's  professional  pursuits.  "  My  books,"  he 
says,  "  she  reads  again  and  again,  and  learns  them  by  heart.  She 
sits  by  when  I  lecture,  and  if  I  get  any  praises,  she  drinks  them 
in  with  eager  ear.  If  I  argue  an  important  case  in  court,  she 
awaits  the  result  with  utmost  tension  of  interest ;  she  has  even 
her  couriers  set  at  intervals  from  the  court-house,  to  pass  on  to 
her  from  minute  to  minute  bulletins  of  the  progress  of  the  case, 
the  looks  and  apparent  disposition  of  the  jury,  whether  I  am  likely 
to  win  the  day."  Even  the  satirical  onslaught  made  by  Juvenal 
upon  the  all  too  learned  women  of  the  time  furnishes  evidence  of 
the  interest  taken  by  the  sex  in  literary  pursuits.  The  satirist 
especially  makes  merry  with  the  fondness  of  women  for  talking 
in  Greek.  "  What  more  offensive,"  he  exclaims,  "  than  for  no 
woman  to  think  herself  fine  till  she  has  made  herself  a  Grecian ! 
Everything  forsooth  in  Greek !  fear,  joy,  anger,  care,  all  the 
inmost  feelings  of  the  soul,  they  must  pour  forth  in  Attic  Greek  ! 
All  this,  however,  we  will  condone  to  girls,  but  just  think  of  a 
Roman  woman,  eighty-six  years  old,  still  talking  Greek  ;  hear  her 
prate  forth  her  endearing  words,  £0117  KOL  t/™\T?  (my  dear  soul,  my 
dear  life)  !  Verily  that  is  no  seemly  speech  in  an  old  woman  !  " 
The  satirist  especially  is  full  of  spleen  at  the  idea  of  a  woman 


398  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

taking  to  literary  criticism  at  a  dinner  party.  "  No  sooner  does 
she  get  to  the  table  than  the  aesthetic  talk  begins ;  she  lauds  Vir- 
gil, and  pardons  him  for  letting  Dido  burn  herself  to  death ;  then 
how  she  weighs  Homer  and  Virgil  together  in  the  scales,  the  one 
now  up,  and  then  the  other  kicking  the  beam ;  the  grammarians 
give  way  before  her,  the  rhetoricians  are  beaten,  all  the  crowd  is 
mum,  not  a  lawyer  nor  a  crier  will  dare  utter  a  sound,  even  no 
other  woman  will  peep,  —  there  falls  upon  all  such  a  mighty  power 
of  words,  you  will  say  all  the  basins  and  bells  of  the  town  are 
beaten  together."  Nor  were  there  wanting  Roman  women  who 
busied  themselves  with  philosophical  studies.  Plutarch  relates 
of  Cornelia,  the  wife  of  Pompey,  that  besides  her  beauty  she  had 
other  attractions,  —  culture  in  literature,  in  music,  in  geometry,  — 
also,  that  she  was  fond  of  philosophical  pursuits,  and  at  the  same 
time  was  free  from  the  pedantry  which  sometimes  characterized 
women  of  such  tendencies.  It  was  doubtless  the  case  that  some 
women  of  deeper  natures  were  wont  to  seek  and  find  solace  when 
in  trouble  in  the  lessons  of  sages  and  moralists.  So  Livia,  when 
afflicted  by  the  death  of  her  son  Drusus,  sought  refuge  in  the 
teachings  of  Stoic  philosophy.  Also  at  a  later  day  the  Empress 
Domna  Julia  gave  herself  up  to  philosophy  and  scientific  studies. 
The  Theophila  who  was  praised  by  Martial  for  her  poetry  was 
also  versed  in  the  tenets  both  of  the  Stoics  and  the  Epicureans. 
But  without  giving  other  illustrations  of  this  topic,  let  me  rather 
use  these  as  an  easy  transition  to  the  last  one  to  which  I  shall  call 
your  attention,  but  which  I  can  only  touch  and  not  fully  treat,  — 
the  powerful  interest  awakened  in  women  by  the  religious  move- 
ments of  the  time.  With  all  the  immoral  influences  at  work  in  Ro- 
man society,  and  perhaps,  indeed,  through  their  agency,  there  was 
a  prodigious  activity  in  the  sphere  of  religion.  Classical  pagan- 
ism was  in  its  decay,  and  yet  there  was  in  it  some  lingering 
vitality;  with  its  own  impaired  strength  now  reinforced  from 
foreign  sources,  it  seemed  gathering  itself  for  its  conflict  with  the 
new  spiritual  power  just  emerging  from  a  despised  corner  of  the 
empire,  before  which  it  was  destined  erelong  to  fall.  Rome  was 
tolerant  of  all  religions,  if  only  they  had  in  them  no  political  aims 
or  ends  ;  indeed,  the  imperial  capital  swarmed  with  religions ;  the 
Romans  were,  as  Paul  said  of  the  Athenians,  quite  too  religious. 
But  it  was  religions  and  not  religion  which  now  prevailed ;  sys- 
tems of  rites  and  ceremonies,  not  the  beliefs  and  faiths  in 
moral  and  religious  truth.  With  the  decline  of  the  national 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  399 

worship  foreign  cults  of  all  sorts  poured  into  the  city;  by  the 
side  of  the  temples  of  the  Roman  gods,  now  falling  into  con- 
tempt, arose  temples  of  the  gods  many  and  lords  many  of  all  the 
world,  and  in  them  their  priests  went  through  with  their  super- 
stitious and  debasing  rites  in  the  presence  of  crowds  of  worship- 
ers of  both  sexes.  Thus  superstition  was  avenging  religion,  as  it 
is  always  sure  to  avenge  it,  in  the  life  of  nations  as  well  as  of 
individuals.  It  was  the  forms  of  worship  from  the  East  which 
drew  the  most  followers.  Their  pomp  attracted  the  senses ;  their 
ceremonial  imposed  upon  simplicity ;  lively  and  susceptible  minds 
that  were  longing  for  somewhat  on  which  to  rest  their  veneration 
fancied  in  the  symbols  and  mysteries  which  abounded  in  these 
forms  of  worship  the  sources  of  some  higher  revelation,  the 
medium  of  some  mystical  communication  with  divine  beings.  It 
was  to  these  religions  and  their  rites  that  women  were  most  at- 
tracted, and  especially  to  the  flattering  promises  they  held  out 
that  by  penances  and  expiations  they  might  get  purification  from 
conscious  and  present  evil.  The  same  moral  weakness  which  had 
induced  the  guilt  of  an  immoral  life  now  readily  rested  in  the 
credulous  belief  that  some  outward  rites  would  insure  atonement. 
Not  only  from  Juvenal  and  Tibullus  and  other  poets,  but  also 
from  Plutarch,  do  we  learn  that  the  divinities  of  Eastern  super- 
stitions had  in  women  their  devoutest  worshipers,  and  their  priests 
found  them  their  blindest  and  most  obedient  devotees.  Some- 
times by  priestly  direction  they  would  bathe  thrice  at  early  morn 
in  the  Tiber,  or  go  on  their  knees  a  certain  prescribed  distance, 
scantily  clad  and  trembling  with  cold  and  with  superstitious  fear. 
Juvenal  declares  that  by  command  of  Isis  they  will  go  on  a  pil- 
grimage to  Egypt  to  bring  home  waters  from  the  Nile  to  sprinkle 
them  in  the  temples  at  Rome.  The  Roman  Juno  now  shared 
with  the  Egyptian  Isis  the  worship  of  women  as  the  guardian 
deity  of  the  sex.  Twice  a  day  they  would  sing  her  choral  songs 
in  the  temples,  be  sprinkled  with  Nile  water,  and  punctiliously 
observe  the  fasts  imposed  by  priests,  or  if  they  failed  in  the  ser- 
vice would  propitiate  Osiris  with  offerings  of  money  or  sacrifices. 
The  worship  of  Isis  had  been  proscribed  at  Rome  in  earlier  times 
on  account  of  the  orgies  with  which  her  festivals  were  celebrated, 
but  the  worship  was  never  destroyed,  and  now  though  subject  to 
government  inspection  was  firmly  established.  But  not  the  tem- 
ples of  Isis  or  of  other  foreign  divinities  alone,  the  Roman  tem- 
ples, all  temples  to  which  women  were  wont  to  resort,  fell  into  bad 


400  ROMAN  WOMEN. 

repute  as  places  of  vice.  One  passage  in  Ovid  recommends  as 
convenient  for  immoral  purposes  not  only  theatres  and  temples, 
but  also  the  sabbath  festivals  of  Jews.  Such  a  mention  of  the 
Jewish  service,  while  it  is  one  of  the  many  proofs  in  Roman 
writers  of  the  general  suspicion  and  dislike  with  which  the  Jews 
were  regarded  in  I  ionic,  yet  proves  at  the  same  time  the  presence 
of  Jews  in  the  capital  as  a  religious  community  and  the  influence 
which  they  had  gained  in  Roman  thought  and  life.  The  Jews 
had  first  appeared  in  Rome  as  early  as  the  time  of  Pompey  and 
his  Eastern  campaign,  when  they  were  brought  thither  in  con- 
siderable numbers  as  captive  slaves  to  decorate  the  conqueror's 
triumph.  These  were  afterward  freed,  and  being  permanently 
established  in  the  city  formed  the  community  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament  as  the  synagogue  of  the  Libertines.  Afterwards 
frequent  accessions  were  made  to  their  numbers,  chiefly  owing  to 
the  mercantile  relations  subsisting  between  Rome  and  the  East. 
Though  always  looked  upon  with  aversion  by  the  Romans,  espe- 
cially of  the  higher  classes,  and  at  different  times  the  victims  of 
fierce  persecution,  yet  at  this  early  period  of  the  empire  they 
continued  to  be  a  numerous  and  wealthy  community.  The  pas- 
sages in  Horace  and  in  Juvenal  and  Tacitus  which  make  mention 
of  the  faith  and  rites  of  the  Jews,  though  always  expressive  of 
hatred  and  contempt,  are  yet  a  testimony  to  the  religious  influence 
exerted  by  them  upon  the  Gentiles  by  which  they  were  surrounded. 
Seneca  significantly  remarks,  in  obvious  allusion  to  the  influence 
of  conquered  Greece  upon  her  conquerors,  that  the  vanquished 
Jews  gave  laws  to  their  conquerors.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
with  their  wonted  proselyting  zeal  they  gained  converts  among  the 
Romans,  and  especially  from  Roman  women.  These,  however, 
were  doubtless  from  the  humbler  orders  of  society,  as  we  may 
gather  from  notices  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  Christian  as 
well  as  in  pagan  writers.  It  is  very  strange,  however,  to  find 
Josephus  claiming  the  cruel  and  licentious  Empress  Poppsea  as  a 
Jewish  proselyte ;  he  says,  employing  the  usual  Jewish  word  for 
a  Hebrew  worshiper,  that  she  was  "  a  woman  who  feared  God  ;  " 
one  might  rather  have  expected  her  to  be  characterized  by  that 
other  Jewish  and  New  Testament  word,  as  "  one  who  feared  not 
God  nor  regarded  man."  Let  me  also  remark  in  closing  this  too 
extended  paper,  that  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  first  Chris- 
tian church  at  Rome,  though  chiefly  composed  of  converted  Jews, 
yet  contained  in  it  native  Roman  men  and  Roman  women  who  had 


ROMAN  WOMEN.  401 

been  baptized  into  the  Christian  faith.  These,  too,  like  the  prose- 
lytes to  Judaism,  were  mostly  from  the  poorer  classes  of  the 
people.  It  was  the  sneer  of  the  pagan  writers  of  a  later  time, 
also,  that  the  new  faith  gathered  its  converts  only  from  the  hum- 
blest and  the  simplest,  from  slaves  and  freedmen,  from  women 
and  children,  a  statement  certainly  which  finds  confirmation  in 
the  teachings  of  St.  Paul.  Yet  one  or  two  instances  of  the  Chris- 
tian conversion  of  Roman  women  of  the  higher  classes  seem  to 
be  given  in  history.  Of  the  fortunes  of  one  of  these,  Pomponia 
Graecina,  we  have  mention  in  a  passage  in  Tacitus  which  belongs 
to  the  year  57,  only  a  year  before  the  date  of  St.  Paul's  Epistle 
to  the  Romans.  She  was  the  wife  of  Aulus  Plautius,  the  bravest 
and  most  successful  soldier  general  in  Nero's  reign.  She  was 
accused  by  the  emperor,  as  Tacitus  says,  as  being  "  guilty  of  a 
foreign  superstition,"  the  word  elsewhere  used  by  Tacitus  for  the 
Christian  heresy.  The  accusation  was  referred  by  Nero  not  to 
any  government  tribunal,  but  to  her  husband  and  his  kinsmen ; 
and  after  the  examination,  whether  through  the  leniency  or  the 
ignorance  of  this  domestic  tribunal,  she  was  suffered  to  escape 
without  punishment.  Tacitus  adds  that  she  withdrew  from  all 
society,  and  passed  the  rest  of  her  life,  which  was  prolonged 
many  years,  in  the  reserve  of  profound  retirement.  A  clearer 
instance  of  a  Christian  convert  in  the  person  of  a  Roman  woman 
is  Flavia  Domitilla.  She  was  the  niece  of  the  Emperor  Domitian, 
and  the  wife  of  Flavius  Clemens,  who  was  consul  in  the  year  95. 
It  is  related  by  Eusebius  that  both  her  husband  and  herself  were 
convicted  of  attachment  to  the  new  Christian  faith,  and  were  ban- 
ished to  the  island  of  Pontia.  These  names  thus  briefly  men- 
tioned, as  well  as  those  mentioned  by  St.  Paul  in  his  writings,  we 
are  readily  disposed  to  accept  as  precursors  of  the  many  women 
not  only  at  Rome,  but  all  over  the  world,  who  were  erelong  to 
become  partakers  of  that  divine  faith  which,  in  the  spread  of  its 
beneficent  sway,  was  to  know  no  distinction  of  sex  or  race  or 
speech,  but  to  become  the  universal  faith  of  mankind. 


TACITUS. 

WRITTEN   FOR  THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,    FEBRUARY    1,  1878,   ALSO  USED 
AS   A   COLLEGE   LECTURE. 

TACITUS  is  a  writer  who  needs  to  be  studied,  and  patiently,  too, 
in  order  to  be  understood  and  appreciated  ;  those  also  who  study 
him  thus,  get  nearest  to  him,  and  find  him  at  his  best  in  their 
most  thoughtful  moods,  and  rather,  I  think,  in  later  than  in 
earlier  years  of  life.  He  is  no  easy  or  attractive  writer,  so  sober 
are  many  of  his  subjects,  and  such  the  noble  reserve  of  his  tone 
and  manner,  native  to  him  as  a  man  and  Roman,  and  fixed  in  his 
very  being  by  the  straitening  education  of  the  times  of  oppression 
in  which  he  lived.  Popular  he  has  never  been,  in  ancient  or  in 
modern  times,  —  a  favorite  rather  of  the  few,  even  with  classical 
scholars  ;  but  in  every  age  and  country  he  has  been  admired  by 
these  as  a  writer  of  original  powers  of  thought  and  observation 
and  expression,  who  blended  with  the  love  of  country  a  true  feeling 
for  humanity,  and  who,  though  living  in  times  of  abounding  evil, 
was  ever  loyal  to  truth  and  virtue.  By  his  insight  and  guidance 
his  readers  have  learned  to  pierce  through  the  shams  of  men  and 
things  to  their  inner  realities,  and  especially  to  discern  clearly  the 
nature  and  workings  of  government,  and  the  awful  responsibilities 
of  absolute  power,  as  illustrated  in  that  Roman  empire  which, 
with  all  the  wickedness  wrought  out  in  it  by  some  of  its  earliest 
rulers,  was  yet  made  by  an  overruling  Providence  to  bring  good 
out  of  evil,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  establishment  of  the 
Christian  civilization  of  modern  times.  We  are  doubtless  always 
swayed  in  our  studies  by  the  prepossessions  which  we  have  for 
a  writer  of  long-established  and  traditional  fame,  but  for  myself 
I  have  reached  a  renewed  conviction  that  with  Tacitus  it  is  a  fame 
which  was  reared  and  yet  rests  upon  a  basis  of  intrinsic  worth ; 
and  this,  too,  though  I  have  all  the  while  had  especially  in  view 
the  severe  ordeal  to  which  he  has  been  subjected  as  a  trustworthy 
authority  by  the  searching  historical  criticism  of  our  own  day. 
I  shall  endeavor,  after  mentioning  the  little  that  is  known  of  the 
personal  history  of  Tacitus,  to  present  a  view  of  the  scope  and 


TACITUS.  403 

contents  of  his  two  chief  works,  the  "  Histories  "  and  the  "Annals," 
and  then  to  touch  and  illustrate  those  commanding  mental  quali- 
ties, and  especially  those  intensely  cherished  political  convictions, 
everywhere  impressed  upon  these  works,  which  give  him  as  a 
writer  such  a  marked  personality  among  ancient  historians.  Taci- 
tus was  born,  as  we  have  probable  evidence  for  believing,  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  54,  an  ill-omened  year  for  a  future  annalist  of 
the  early  Caesars  first  to  see  the  light  in  Rome ;  for  that  was  the 
year  when  Nero,  then  only  a  youth  of  seventeen,  climbed  the  impe- 
rial throne  over  the  body  of  the  just-murdered  Claudius,  poisoned 
by  Agrippina,  the  mother  of  Nero,  and  both  the  niece  and  the 
wife  of  the  murdered  emperor.  The  boyhood  and  early  youth  of 
Tacitus  thus  fell  in  the  fourteen  years  of  Nero's  reign ;  but  from 
our  ignorance  of  his  parentage  and  family  we  may  not  discern 
in  what  favored  Roman  home  he  may  have  been  nurtured  and 
guarded  amid  the  rapidly  passing  scenes  of  crime  and  calamity 
which  make  up  the  profligate  force  of  that  Neronian  principate. 
As  a  boy  of  ten  years  of  age  he  may  have  witnessed  the  frightful 
scenes  of  that  destructive  fire  which  in  the  year  64  visited  Rome, 
as  if  a  swift  retribution  of  the  guilt  of  its  prince  and  people ;  and 
the  yet  more  frightful  scenes  of  the  sacrifice  by  Nero  of  the  little 
band,  in  the  city,  of  innocent  though  hated  Christians,  —  spectacles 
of  misery  and  wickedness  then  seen  by  his  own  eyes,  and  after- 
wards set  by  his  matured  genius  in  historic  picture  for  the  won- 
dering, bewildered  gaze  of  the  world.  In  respect  to  the  education 
of  Tacitus,  we  learn  from  letters  of  his  friend,  the  younger  Pliny, 
that  in  his  youth  he  gave  himself  assiduously  to  poetry  and  letters, 
and  especially  to  rhetoric,  and  probably  under  the  teaching  of 
Quintilian,  the  accomplished  rhetorical  professor  of  that  age.  We 
know  also,  from  a  delightful  passage  of  his  own,  his  "  Dialogue 
on  the  Decline  of  Eloquence,"  that,  like  other  well-bred  Roman 
youth,  he  attached  himself  to  distinguished  lawyers  of  the  time, 
watching  them,  as  he  says,  and  studiously  listening  to  their  argu- 
ments in  court  and  their  instructions  at  their  homes,  that  thus,  by 
catching  from  them,  if  he  might,  the  secrets  of  their  professional 
success,  he  might  himself  be  fitted  to  enter  the  arena  of  forensic 
and  of  public  life.  The  younger  Pliny,  who  at  an  interval  of  sev- 
eral years  emulously  followed  him  in  these  pursuits,  speaks  of  him 
as  having  already  attained  distinction  as  a  forensic  speaker  when 
he  was  himself  just  commencing  his  career.  He  began  his  public 
life  in  the  year  79,  the  last  of  Vespasian's  reign,  having  filled  in 


404  TACITUS. 

that  year  the  office  of  quaestor.  Under  the  patronage  of  Titus  he 
was  promoted  to  the  office  of  tribune  in  the  year  81.  The  follow- 
ing tyrannical  reign  of  Domitian,  though  it  was  not  unfriendly  to 
his  political  advancement,  yet  pressed  with  heavy  weight  upon  him- 
self and  his  family,  as  upon  the  entire  generation  of  Roman  states- 
men and  citizens  to  which  he  belonged.  In  the  year  78  he  had 
married  the  daughter  of  Julius  Agricola,  the  very  year  in  which 
Agricola  entered  upon  his  proconsular  province  of  Britain.  Re- 
called from  that  province,  where  he  had  won  a  great  military 
fame,  by  the  envious  Domitiau,  he  was  now  living  in  Rome  in  a 
retirement  which,  marked  though  it  was  by  studied  moderation  of 
life  and  conduct,  was  ever  shadowed  and  darkened  by  the  deadly 
jealousy  of  Domitian.  Yet  Tacitus  himself  was,  during  this  reign, 
advanced  to  the  prsetorship,  and  also  admitted  to  the  college  of 
the  quindecemviral  priesthood ;  and,  invested  with  this  twofold 
dignity,  he  presided  at  the  secular  games  which  were  celebrated 
by  the  emperor  in  the  year  88.  In  93  occurred  Agricola's  death, 
a  sore  bereavement  to  Tacitus  and  his  wife,  and  aggravated  by 
the  remembrance  that  they  were  not  by  the  bedside  of  their  re- 
vered father  in  his  last  moments,  —  that  they  had  lost  him,  indeed, 
four  years  before  by  reason  of  their  so  long  absence  from  Rome. 
But  we  know,  from  a  memorable  passage  that  never  loses  its 
value  by  repetition,  that,  in  their  experience  of  the  reign  of  terror 
soon  inaugurated  by  Domitian,  they  found  satisfying  solace  in  the 
thought  that  he,  in  whose  passing  away  they  had  mourned  the 
premature  extinction  of  a  great  light  of  genius  and  virtue,  had  by 
a  fortunate  opportunity  of  death  escaped  all  that  impending  future, 
—  escaped  that  last  dread  time  when,  not  at  intervals  but  by  one 
continuous  blow,  the  life-blood  of  the  state  was  exhausted.  But 
those  weary  fifteen  years  of  the  Domitian  reign  at  last  sank  below 
the  horizon,  and  in  the  rise  of  Nerva,  and  soon  after  of  his  adopted 
successor  Trajan,  Tacitus  greeted  and  afterwards  commemorated 
the  dawn  of  a  most  happy  age,  which  witnessed,  as  he  records  it  in 
a  passage  glowing  with  a  venial  enthusiasm,  the  union  of  elements 
hitherto  impossible  of  fellowship  in  the  Roman  state,  —  liberty 
and  imperial  sovereignty.  In  the  beginning  of  this  period  Tacitus 
reached  the  height  alike  of  his  public  and  his  forensic  honors.  In 
the  year  97  he  gained  the  consulship ;  and  while  holding  that  office 
he  delivered  a  funeral  oration  upon  the  distinguished  Virginius, 
his  immediate  predecessor,  which  Pliny  pronounces,  in  an  epistle 
of  exquisite  grace,  as  a  supreme  honor  alike  to  the  deceased  and 


TACITUS.  405 

his  eulogist,  —  the  felicity  of  a  life  full  of  amplest  honors  crowned 
by  a  eulogy  from  the  most  eloquent  of  orators  ("  supremus  felici- 
tati  cumulus,  laudator  eloquentissimus"  II.  1).  In  the  year  100 
he  undertook  the  last  legal  cause  in  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  he 
was  ever  engaged,  appearing  for  the  government  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  Marius  Priscus  for  maladministration  of  the  province  of 
Africa.  Here,  too,  we  are  indebted  to  Pliny,  who  was  also  en- 
gaged for  the  prosecution,  for  our  knowledge  of  Tacitus'  part  in 
the  trial.  This  part  he  describes  in  a  single  significant  sentence  : 
"  Cornelius  Tacitus  replied  most  eloquently,  and  with  that  excel- 
lence which  is  peculiar  to  his  forensic  style,  with  a  noble  dignity, 
—  o-e/z,vojs "  (II.  11).  But  the  happy  era  of  Nerva  and  Trajan 
was  chiefly  happy  for  Tacitus  in  that  it  was  the  opening  for  him 
of  his  career  as  a  writer.  Withdrawing  from  all  public  and  pro- 
fessional pursuits,  he  now  gave  himself  to  this  true  vocation,  and 
devoted  to  it  the  remaining  twenty  years  of  his  life.  He  was  now 
thus  past  forty  years  of  age.  With  distinction  he  had  gone 
through  the  entire  course  of  public  office,  and  by  the  part  he  had 
thus  taken  in  the  conduct  of  affairs  had  gained  the  character 
and  fame  of  a  statesman  of  experience  and  wisdom  and  influence. 
Like  rich  results  he  had  won  as  a  lawyer  and  advocate.  He  was 
high  in  favor  with  the  emperor  and  with  the  best  Roman  society. 
His  house  was  the  favorite  resort  of  all  men  in  Rome  who  were  stu- 
dious of  learning.  And,  most  and  best  of  all,  he  was  enjoying,  as 
he  gratefully  says  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  first  historical  work, 
"  the  rare  felicity  of  the  times  when  one  is  allowed  to  think  what- 
ever he  will,  and  to  utter  whatever  he  thinks "  ("  rara  tempo- 
rum  felicitate  ubi  sentire  quce  veils,  et  quce  sentias  dicere,  licet," 
Hist.  I.  1).  What  a  glad  ring  in  those  exultant  words  of  the 
Rome  of  Nerva  and  Trajan,  in  contrast  with  the  wail  of  sorrowful 
remembrance  of  the  Domitian  times  of  oppression  !  "  A  great  les- 
son, indeed,  of  patience  have  we  given ;  arid  as  our  fathers  saw  the 
farthest  limits  of  liberty,  so  we  have  seen  the  utmost  bound  of 
bondage,  robbed  as  we  were  by  spies  and  informers  of  all  inter- 
course of  speaking  and  hearing.  Memory  itself  also  had  we  lost, 
were  it  as  easy  to  forget  as  to  be  silent "  (Agr.  2).  Full  and 
fresh  in  Tacitus  himself  was  the  memory  of  that  humiliating  lesson 
of  patience,  as  the  "  Agricola,"  in  which  it  is  told,  was  written  but 
little  more  than  a  year  after  those  Domitian  times  had  come  to  an 
end.  That  was  his  first  work,  given  to  the  Roman  world  in  the 
beginning  of  the  year  98.  In  it  he  set  forth  as  a  biographer,  for 


406  TACITUS. 

admiring  and  emulous  study,  the  life  of  a  good  man  and  a  great 
statesman  and  ruler,  and  in  the  spirit  of  a  historian  opened  to  his 
readers  broad  views  which  that  life  suggested  of  Britain  and  the 
Britons,  and  their  conquest  by  the  Romans  and  their  government 
under  Roman  rule,  and  also  sketched  with  a  few  master  strokes, 
in  such  passages  as  that  I  have  quoted,  the  character  of  Domitian 
and  of  his  reign. 

The  "  Agricola  "  was  followed  in  the  same  year  by  the  "  Ger- 
mania,"  the  historical  monograph  in  which  was  embodied  all  that 
was  known,  from  the  most  authentic  sources,  of  the  manners  and 
institutions  of  the  ancient  Germans,  that  great  people  whom  the 
Romans,  after  a  struggle  now  going  on  for  more  than  two  centuries 
had  been  unable  to  subjugate,  and  who  were  destined  in  the  end 
to  be  themselves  the  victors,  and  yet  in  their  turn,  even  as  the  Ro- 
mans by  the  Greeks,  to  be  conquered  and  subdued  by  the  superior 
civilization  of  the  nation  and  empire  they  had  conquered  in  arms. 
These  two  works,  however,  together  with  the  brilliant  "  Dialogue  of 
the  Decline  of  Roman  Eloquence,"  were  only  the  minor  produc- 
tions of  Tacitus  j  they  were  only  historical  studies  preparatory 
for  the  subsequent  greater  works  which  doubtless  already  lay  in 
germ  in  the  fruitful  mind  of  their  author.  In  the  third  chapter 
of  the  "  Agricola "  he  had  mentioned  the  plan  he  then  had  in 
mind  to  write  the  history  of  Domitian's  reign,  and  also  of  the 
reigns  of  Nerva  and  Trajan,  the  one  designed,  as  he  expressed  it, 
as  a  memorial  of  former  servitude,  and  the  other  as  a  grateful  tes- 
timony to  present  blessings.  On  the  publication,  however,  of  the 
"  Histories,"  the  earlier  of  his  two  extant  works,  it  appeared  that 
his  plan  had  undergone  important  changes.  In  the  introduction  he 
proposes  to  survey  the  course  of  Roman  affairs  from  the  death 
of  Nero  in  68  to  the  death  of  Domitian  in  90,  reserving  for  the 
solace  of  his  old  age  the  more  grateful  task  of  fulfilling  the  other 
part  of  his  early  promise.  The  "  Annals,"  though  published  later, 
had  to  do  with  the  preceding  period  extending  from  the  death  of 
Augustus,  A.  D.  14,  to  the  close  of  Nero's  reign.  In  one  passage 
of  the  work  he  makes  incidental  mention  of  his  purpose  to  write  by 
and  by,  as  an  introduction  to  it,  the  history  of  the  Augustan  rule ; 
but  he  seems  not  to  have  lived  long  enough  to  execute  this  pur- 
pose, nor  yet  the  intended  labor  of  love  of  commemorating  the  pros- 
perous reigns  of  his  patrons  Nerva  and  Trajan.  Unfortunately, 
indeed,  we  have  not  entire  the  works  which  he  actually  wrote ; 
time,  which  has  saved  many  productions  which  the  world  would 


TACITUS.  407 

have  willingly  let  die,  has  dealt  rudely  with  these  which  so  well 
deserved  to  live.  The  sixteen  books  of  the  "  Annals  "  comprised 
the  reigns  of  four  emperors,  a  period  of  fifty-four  years  ;  there  are 
extant  nine  entire  books  (i.,  ii.,  iii.,  iv.,  vi.,  xii.,  xiii.,  xiv.,  xv.),  and 
parts  of  three  others  (v.,  xi.,  xvi.),  covering  about  forty  years  ;  we 
have  nearly  all  of  the  twenty-three  years  of  Tiberius  ;  but  all  of  the 
four  years  of  Caligula,  almost  half  of  the  thirteen  years  of  Clau- 
dius, and  also  the  last  two  years  of  Nero,  are  lost.  A  still  harder 
fate  has  befallen  the  "  Histories."  Of  these,  which  originally  com- 
prised fourteen  books,  and  embraced  a  period  of  twenty-eight  years, 
including  the  reigns  of  all  the  Flavian  Caesars,  there  remain  only 
the  first  four  books  and  a  part  of  the  fifth.  This  work  must  have 
been  projected  upon  a  larger  canvas,  and  have  been  wrought  with 
greater  fullness  of  detail  in  the  execution  than  the  "  Annals,"  as 
the  extant  portions  cover  only  the  brief  period  of  civil  war  which 
just  preceded  the  beneficent  reign  of  Vespasian.  So  ill  has  it  thus 
fared  with  this  work  of  the  historic  art  from  the  rude  touch  of 
envious  time ;  even  as  with  some  painting  of  an  old  master,  its 
brighter  colors  and  finer  lines  dimmed  and  utterly  gone  past  the 
deftest  skill  of  the  restorer,  and  only  its  darker  shades  left  on  the 
faded  canvas  to  tantalize  the  eyes  of  the  beholder !  If  only  we  had 
the  vanished  lights  of  the  figures  of  Vespasian  and  Titus  to  relieve 
those  scenes  of  strife  and  horror  yet  grouped  there  with  such  awful 
distinctness  about  the  persons  of  Otho  and  Vitellius !  This  inciden- 
tal notice  describes  the  prevailing  aspect  of  all  that  Tacitus  wrote, 
for  such  is  the  aspect  presented  by  the  times,  with  their  dominant 
persons  and  ideas,  which  it  was  his  task  to  put  upon  historic  rec- 
ord. As  the  historian  of  the  Julian  and  the  Claudian  Caesars,  it 
was  his  not  merely  to  trace  the  workings  of  the  imperial  system 
in  Roman  history,  as  it  was  inaugurated  by  Augustus,  and  admin- 
istered, virtual  despotism  though  it  was,  under  the  forms  of  the 
republic.  That  was  the  good  side  of  Roman  absolute  power,  if, 
indeed,  a  thing  essentially  bad  can  have  a  good  side  at  all ;  it  was 
the  good  side  afterwards  illustrated  by  Vespasian,  and  still  later 
by  Trajan  and  by  Marcus  Aurelius.  But  Tacitus  had  to  do  with 
the  imperial  system  as  a  despotism  established  by  Tiberius  in  form 
as  well  as  in  substance,  administered  by  him  and  his  Claudian 
successors  as  an  hereditary  despotism,  and,  what  was  far  worse, 
administered  in  a  tyrannical  spirit,  and  with  frantic  excesses 
of  lust  and  cruelty  for  which  we  can  scarcely  find  parallels  in  the 
annals  of  royalty  in  any  age  or  nation.  It  was  such  a  system  as 


408  TACITUS. 

this,  illustrated  in  the  persons  and  acts  of  the  emperors  them- 
selves, and  the  instruments  of  their  tyranny  and  their  vices,  the 
informers,  the  favorite  freedmen,  and  often  debased  senators  and 
magistrates,  and  sometimes  a  whole  servile  senate,  with  all  the 
poisonous  influence  it  diffused  through  all  channels  of  public  and 
private  life,  which  it  devolved  upon  Tacitus  to  unfold  and  exhibit 
in  narrative,  in  picture,  in  moral  lesson,  in  philosophical  reflec- 
tion, for  the  instruction  and  warning  of  his  countrymen.  No 
reader  was  so  well  aware  as  the  writer  himself  of  the  sober  nature 
of  his  historic  task.  In  several  passages  he  deprecates  a  com- 
parison of  his  own  labors  with  those  of  the  historians  of  the  com- 
monwealth. He  seems  to  have  had  Livy  in  mind,  as  he  mentions 
the  inspiring  themes  of  earlier  writers,  wars  prosperously  waged, 
battles  fought  and  won,  and  conquests  achieved,  or  the  animated 
contests,  within  the  walls  of  Rome,  of  consuls  and  tribunes,  pa- 
tricians and  plebeians,  all  of  them  struggles,  whether  at  home  or 
abroad,  in  peace  or  in  war,  of  citizens  of  a  free  state,  rising  ever 
through  all  alike  to  increasing  power  and  fame.  For  himself  he 
has  only  a  straitened  and  straitening  task,  and  void  of  glory,  pro- 
ceedings to  narrate,  sad  and  tragical,  a  continuity  of  cruel  orders, 
faithless  friendships,  endless  accusations  and  trials,  the  ruin  of  in- 
nocent men,  —  all  these  ever  recurring,  even  to  satiety  (Ann.  IV. 
33).  Yet  in  the  spirit  of  a  true  historian  he  tells  his  readers  that 
it  will  fall  within  his  province  to  point  to  contemporary  examples 
of  virtue  and  wisdom  and  patriotism  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  any 
state.  Early  in  the  "  Annals  "  he  declares  (III.  55)  :  "  Our  ances- 
tors have  not  excelled  us  in  all  things ;  our  own  age  has  produced 
many  excellencies  worthy  of  all  praise  and  imitation."  And  in 
the  very  opening  of  the  "  Histories  "  he  writes :  "Yet not  so  barren 
of  virtues  has  been  our  own  age  as  not  to  furnish  good  examples,  — 
mothers  following  their  children  into  exile,  and  wives  their  hus- 
bands ;  relations  and  friends  constant  in  adversity ;  the  fidelity  of 
slaves,  resolute  against  the  tortures  of  the  rack ;  illustrious  men 
unjustly  reduced  to  the  necessities  of  death,  and  their  deaths 
equal  to  the  glorious  deaths  of  the  patriots  of  olden  days."  To 
the  execution  of  such  a  task  Tacitus  came  not  without  compre- 
hensive and  assiduous  historical  studies.  Yet  it  cannot  be  main- 
tained, as  is  sometimes  asserted  by  ardent  admirers  of  Tacitus, 
that  he  conducted  these  studies  in  the  critical  spirit  and  method 
characteristic  of  the  best  modern  historical  works.  Such  a  scien- 
tific procedure  in  the  composition  of  history  is  quite  foreign  to 


TACITUS.  409 

the  Roman  mind.  Cicero,  indeed,  carrying  to  a  characteristic 
extreme  the  ancient  conception  of  writing  history,  pronounces  it 
as  mostly  an  orator's  task  ("  opus  maxime  oratorium"  De  Legi- 
bus,  I.  2)  ;  and  though  his  countrymen,  who  were  historians  by 
profession,  might  not  have  avowed  this  conception  in  theory,  yet 
no  one  of  them  ever  forgot  that  it  was  the  born  vocation  of  a 
Roman  to  be  an  orator.  The  younger  Pliny,  in  one  of  those  in- 
teresting letters  from  which  I  have  already  several  times  quoted, 
expresses  the  idea  of  the  critical  function  of  the  historian  which 
probably  prevailed  in  his  time,  and  was  best  realized  by  Tacitus. 
Pliny  had  been  urged  by  many  friends  to  write  history  himself, 
and,  in  the  ardent  love  of  letters  and  of  literary  fame  which  glows 
in  every  sentence  he  has  written,  he  was  at  once  fired  with  the 
ambition  of  the  noble  service,  as  he  conceives  it,  of  rescuing  from 
oblivion  what  deserves  the  immortality  of  letters,  and,  as  he  adds 
with  entire  simplicity,  of  perpetuating  one's  own  name  in  perpet- 
uating the  names  of  others  ("  aliorumque  famam  cum  sua  exten- 
dere").  But,  he  asks,  What  times  shall  I  take  for  my  theme? 
The  old,  and  those  written  of  already  by  other  men  ?  In  that  case 
the  results  of  investigation  are  ready  at  hand ;  but  the  collation  of 
the  different  writers  is  a  burdensome  labor  ("  parata  inquisitio, 
sed  onerosa  collatio"  V.  8).  Thus  we  see  that,  for  an  adequate 
view  of  past  events,  the  process  of  the  writer's  preparation  con- 
sisted, not  in  original  research  in  the  public  archives  or  other  ulti- 
mate sources  of  knowledge,  but  in  the  sifting  and  comparing  of 
his  predecessors  in  the  same  path  of  historical  study.  Such  was 
doubtless  in  the  main  the  method  of  Tacitus.  From  this  labor  of 
collation,  however,  burdensome  as  it  was  in  the  age  of  Pliny,  and 
repulsive  as  it  seemed  to  his  fastidious  literary  tastes,  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  more  manly  and  robust  genius  of  Tacitus  never 
shrank.  We  know,  from  his  own  words  in  respect  to  matters  on 
which  there  was  a  conflict  of  authorities,  that  he  subjected  the  tes- 
timonies and  views  of  the  many  writers  he  had  before  him  to  a 
searching  comparison,  instituted  and  carried  out  by  his  sagacious 
judgment,  and,  having  reached  independent  conclusions,  set  upon 
them  in  his  pages  the  stamp  of  his  own  mind.  He  has  been 
charged  by  recent  writers  with  giving  space  in  his  pages  to  un- 
founded rumors,  and  weaving  into  his  narrative  untrustworthy 
anecdotes  for  the  sake  of  illustrating  his  views  of  persons  and 
events.  It  is  curious  to  note  how  Mr.  Merivale,  the  chief  one  of 
these  disparaging  critics,  never  fails  to  give  even  more  space  to 


410  TACITUS. 

such  rumors  than  Tacitus  himself,  and  sets  in  his  own  attractive 
pages  all  the  anecdotes  retouched  and  embellished  by  his  own 
skillful  hand.  We  need  not  be  careful  to  answer  such  charges 
with  a  total  denial.  It  is  quite  probable  that,  in  his  summing  up 
of  a  less  clear  case  against  such  notorious  criminals  as  Tiberius 
and  Nero,  Tacitus  may  have  weighted  the  evidence  with  circum- 
stantial matter  in  the  shape  of  incidents  and  rumors  which  would 
be  thrown  out  in  a  modern  court  of  justice.  But  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  in  the  dark  days  of  those  imperial  criminals,  when  even 
the  most  nefarious  acts,  covered  and  hushed  up  as  they  were  by  the 
infamous  creatures  and  tools  of  the  palace,  could  not,  as  in  the 
freer  Ciceronian  time,  be  dragged  out  from  the  foul  haunts  where 
they  were  done  to  the  light  of  truth  and  justice.  Sometimes  a  pre- 
vailing popular  rumor  had  in  it  an  element  of  surest  proof,  and 
gave  the  directest  clue  to  a  right  judgment,  and  even  to  the  dis- 
covery of  facts.  A  marked  instance  may  be  cited,  out  of  a  multi- 
tude like  it,  in  the  state  of  the  public  mind  after  the  sudden  and 
ambiguous  death  of  Germanicus.  It  was  the  prevalent  rumor, 
amounting  to  belief,  that  he  had  been  poisoned  by  Gnaeus  Piso, 
and  this,  too,  with  the  connivance  of  Tiberius,  to  whom  Germani- 
cus was  an  object  of  jealous  dread  and  hate  on  account  of  his  com- 
manding merits,  and  his  well-nigh  idolatrous  popularity  with  the 
Romans.  The  rumor,  however,  especially  in  its  bearings  upon 
the  emperor,  only  circulated  in  private,  and  was  uttered  only  with 
bated  breath ;  the  people  indulged  only  in  what  Tacitus  describes 
in  one  of  those  brief,  terse,  untranslatable  utterances  of  his,  —  only 
in  occulta  vox  et  suspicax  silentium  (Ann.  III.  11),  —  murmurs, 
though  in  secret,  against  their  prince,  and  a  silence  which  to  him 
was  eloquent  in  its  suspicion  against  himself.  The  emperor,  with 
his  wonted  perspicacity,  saw  the  whole  situation,  and  with  his 
wonted  dissimulation  ordered  a  trial  of  the  suspected  Piso.  The 
trial  began ;  the  evidence,  though  damning,  seemed  not  legally  con- 
clusive of  guilt ;  but  the  odium  visible  on  all  men's  faces,  and  rife 
in  the  very  air  of  all  Rome,  was  too  much  for  Piso.  On  the  night 
before  the  day  on  which  he  was  to  make  his  defense,  he  committed 
suicide ;  and  suicide,  to  quote  a  modern  American  utterance  and 
a  match  for  Tacitus  in  terseness  —  "suicide  was  confession." 

Whatever  errors  or  sins  may  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  Tacitus 
as  a  writer,  every  unprejudiced  reader  must  believe  that  he  was 
animated  by  those  high  moral  aims  which  in  various  passages  of 
his  works  he  has  distinctly  professed.  As  a  biographer  it  was  his 


TACITUS.  411 

purpose  to  transmit  the  remembrance  of  a  good  character  without 
partiality  and  without  ambition  ;  and  he  counted  a  studious  imi- 
tation of  such  a  character  as  the  only  genuine  admiration.  He 
declares  it  to  be  the  chief  office  of  the  historian  never  to  be  silent 
in  the  praise  of  virtue,  and  ever  to  denounce  vice,  that  men  may 
be  deterred  from  it  by  the  infamy  which  it  incurs.  Knowing 
well  that  he  is  to  treat  of  great  movements  and  issues  personal  to 
the  experience  of  some  of  his  readers,  fresh  in  the  memory  or 
knowledge  of  all,  on  which  men  had  been  parted  by  honest  differ- 
ences of  opinion  on  conduct  or  by  party  strifes  and  struggles, 
which  by  the  words  of  the  historian  might  break  out  anew,  —  the 
old  fires  of  passion  only  hidden  by  treacherous  ashes,  —  he  is  bent 
upon  reaching  a  true  and  impartial  judgment,  and  of  giving  utter- 
ance to  it  without  fear  or  favor.  In  the  opening  of  the  "  Annals  " 
he  declares  that  he  will  enter  fully  into  the  transactions  of  the 
reigns  of  Tiberius  and  his  three  immediate  successors,  free  alike 
from  the  resentment  or  the  party  zeal  which  have  infected  earlier 
works  ;  and  in  that  of  the  "  Histories  "  where  he  is  to  write  of  Ves- 
pasian and  of  Titus,  and  also  of  Domitian,  he  will  write  in  the 
spirit  of  loyalty  to  truth,  and  not  of  love  or  of  hate.  As  we  go 
back  from  the  study  of  his  works  to  these  noble  words  of  promise, 
we  feel  that  for  the  most  part  he  has  nobly  fulfilled  them.  In  all 
great  issues  where  the  interests  of  virtue,  truth,  justice,  honor 
are  concerned,  touching  the  relations  of  public  and  of  social  life, 
of  rulers  and  subjects,  his  vision  is  clear,  his  heart  in  the  right 
place,  his  affinities  go  straight  to  whatever  is  just  and  noble  and 
exalted ;  his  antipathies  are  intense  against  vice  of  every  sort, 
against  all  that  is  mean  and  low  and  debasing,  especially  what  he 
deems  unworthy  of  a  Roman,  whether  emperor,  magistrate,  or 
citizen,  at  home  in  Rome  or  in  the  provinces,  in  peace  or  in  war. 
In  the  spirit  of  an  old  Roman  patrician,  he  has  an  intense  aver- 
sion to  all  sins  against  the  Roman  state  and  country  ;  against  the 
national  character  and  traditions  ;  against  all  that  is  extreme  and 
radical  in  opinion,  or  boisterous  in  word  and  degrading  in  con- 
duct ;  he  hates,  even  as  a  Scipio,  the  low  wiles  of  adulation  and 
servility  in  the  people,  and  shares  the  indignation,  though  not  the 
action,  of  a  Brutus,  against  the  insolent  bearing  and  selfish  cruelty 
of  a  tyrant.  Yet  it  must  be  owned  that  if  Tacitus  had  these  better 
qualities  of  the  old  Roman  character  and  breeding,  he  was  not 
free  from  the  prejudices  of  the  Roman  nation  and  of  the  Roman 
nobility.  The  blood  of  slaves  and  foreigners  is  in  his  eyes  of 


412  TACITUS. 

quite  inferior  quality,  and  of  little  worth  in  comparison  with  that 
of  :i  Roman,  especially  of  a  Roman  or  imperial  or  patrician  family. 
He  counts  it  a  special  aggravation  of  the  licentiousness  of  the 
younger  Livia  that  she,  the  niece  of  Augustus  and  the  wife  of 
Drusus  the  second,  should  defile  her  ancestry  by  an  intrigue  with 
Sejanus,  who  was  only  of  equestrian  rank  in  a  municipal  town 
("  municipali  adultero"  IV.  3)  ;  and  in  another  (VI.  27)  place  he 
mentions  as  a  matter  of  public  sorrow  that  Julia,  the  daughter 
of  Drusus  and  Livia,  had  married  Rubellius  Blandus,  who  was 
nothing  more  than  the  grandson  of  a  Roman  knight  from  Tibur. 
We  wonder,  too,  as  he  speaks  of  the  delight  which  the  elder 
Drusus  took  in  the  gladiatorial  shows,  how  with  a  real  zest  he 
could  see  the  blood  of  the  combatants  flow,  that  the  historian 
should  so  gratuitously  add,  that  it  was,  however,  only  worthless 
blood  ("  quamquam  vili  sanguine"  I.  76).  When  in  the  reign  of 
Tiberius  four  thousand  Jews  were  banished  for  their  religion  to 
Sardinia,  he  quotes  the  words  of  the  senate's  decree  as  if  agreeing 
with  the  sentiment  they  expressed,  that  if  the  bad  climate  should 
destroy  them  all,  the  loss  would  be  of  no  account  ("  vile  damnum" 
II.  85).  But  yet  more  does  Tacitus  betray  his  Roman  prejudices 
in  the  account  which  he  weaves  into  his  "  Histories  "  of  the  origin 
of  the  Jews  and  of  their  institutions  and  character.  It  is  a  serious 
imputation  upon  him,  both  as  a  writer  and  a  man,  that  having 
access,  as  he  had,  to  the  works  of  Josephus,  and  living  in  a  city 
where  were  thousands  of  Jews,  some  of  whom  certainly  could  have 
given  him  just  and  intelligent  views  of  their  nation,  he  should 
have  mixed  up  in  a  serious  historical  disquisition,  with  much, 
indeed,  that  is  authentic  and  true  of  Jewish  faith  and  doctrine, 
yet  so  much  more  of  fable  and  falsehood  drawn  from  Greek  and 
Egyptian  sources.  There  gleams  out,  however,  from  this  chaos  of 
matter  a  bright  ray  of  light  when  the  historian  describes,  and  in 
his  own  best  manner,  the  Jewish  spiritual  worship  of  One  God, 
"  The  Jews,"  he  says,  "  have  only  a  spiritual  conception  of  God, 
and  of  One  God  only.  Profane,  they  say,  are  those  who  fashion 
images  of  gods  with  perishable  materials  after  a  human  likeness  ; 
the  Deity  is  supreme  and  eternal,  neither  possible  of  imitation  or 
liable  to  change."  ("  Judcei  mente  sola  unumque  numen  intelle- 
gunt.  —  Summum  illud  et  ceternum,  neque  imitabile  neque  interi- 
turum."  Hist.  V.  5.)  Tacitus  wrote,  also,  better  than  he  knew, 
when  he  detailed  the  signs  and  wonders  that  attended  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  temple,  and  told  of  the  voice  more  than  human  that  was 


TACITUS.  413 

heard,  when  its  gates  were  burst  open,  uttering  the  fearful  words : 
"  the  gods  are  forsaking  the  holy  place ;  "  when,  too,  he  recorded 
the  cherished  Jewish  prediction  that  "  men  were  to  go  forth  from 
Judaea  who  should  rule  the  world."  In  this  passage  of  Tacitus 
which,  though  relieved  by  these  few  pure  touches  of  truth,  is  yet 
so  grossly  erroneous  in  substance  and  written  in  such  a  tone  of 
disparagement,  we  see  reflected  the  sentiments  of  contempt  enter- 
tained by  the  Romans,  especially  of  the  higher  orders  of  society, 
towards  the  Jews,  as  an  alien  race  living  in  the  city  chiefly  as 
slaves  or  freedmen,  given  up  to  idle  and  superstitious  rites,  intol- 
erant in  religious  faith  and  practice,  and  fit  only  for  sedition  and 
treason.  It  seems  to  have  been  an  element  of  the  fearful  destiny 
which  waited  on  the  guilty  rejection  of  their  own  promised  Mes- 
siah that  they  were  thus  set  forth  to  the  scorn  of  the  world  in 
the  pages  of  a  great  historian,  writing  in  the  cultivated  language 
of  that  nation  which  had  just  trodden  them  down  in  war,  burned 
up  their  temple,  and  razed  their  city  to  the  ground.  But  the 
language  of  calumny  used  by  Tacitus  of  the  Christians  in  his 
narrative  of  the  Neronian  persecution  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded  cannot  be  adequately  explained  on  any  theory  of  national 
prejudice.  In  that  passage,  indeed,  Tacitus  expresses  a  just  sense 
of  commiseration  and  horror,  as  well  as  of  moral  indignation,  at 
the  fate  of  these  victims  of  imperial  fury,  sacrificed,  as  he  says, 
not  for  their  guilt,  but  to  glut  the  ferocity  of  a  single  tyrant. 
And  yet  he  speaks  of  these  Christians  as  detested  for  their  "  mis- 
chievous superstition,"  for  their  "  hatred  to  the  human  race,"  and 
so  as  "  guilty  "  and  "  deserving  the  extremest  punishment  of  death." 
No  adequate  explanation  of  such  atrocious  language  has  ever  been 
given,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  any  interpreter.  The  Christians  then 
in  the  city  formed  but  an  inconsiderable  body  of  people,  and  had 
attracted  but  little  attention,  and  so  far  as  known  had  been  con- 
sidered and  treated  as  unobtrusive  and  inoffensive,  and  wholly 
innocent  of  political  disturbance  or  disaffection.  It  may  be  that 
from  the  ignorance  or  misapprehension  or  indifference  of  the  Ro- 
mans they  were  confounded  with  the  despised  Jews,  and  so  drew 
upon  themselves  such  a  horrible  though  wholly  undeserved  fate. 
But  before  we  quite  leave  this  topic,  let  us  call  to  mind  that  Taci- 
tus was  not  always  swayed  by  national  feeling  in  his  historical 
allusions  to  foreign  nations.  Let  us  recall  the  spirit  of  admira- 
tion which  pervades  his  views  of  the  ancient  Germans,  though 
they  were  the  most  formidable  and  persistent  of  the  enemies  of 


414  TACITUS. 

Rome,  the  occasional  contrasts  he  presents  between  the  virtues 
of  those  rude  barbarians  with  the  vices  of  a  cultivated  people, 
drawn  with  so  much  force  and  point,  that  some  critics,  confound- 
ing in  the  work  the  incidental  with  the  essential,  have  judged  the 
whole  to  be  an  intended  satire  upon  degenerate  Roman  manners. 
And  what  a  fine  eulogy  does  he  pronounce  upon  Arminius  (Ann. 
II.  88),  the  German  Hermann,  whose  prowess  and  bravery  they 
had  learned  to  know  and  respect  to  their  cost  in  more  than  one 
hard-fought  battle.  Though  composed  in  Latin  speech,  it  rings 
out  in  tone  like  a  German  patriotic  song.  "  The  liberator  of  Ger- 
many," he  calls  him,  "  who  assailed  Rome,  not  in  her  first  begin- 
nings, but  in  the  very  blossom  of  her  imperial  power  ;  beaten  some- 
times in  battle,  never  conquered  in  war.  Seven  and  thirty  years  of 
life  he  completed  ;  twelve  of  military  command.  And  among  those 
barbarous  tribes  his  name  is  still  celebrated  in  song,  albeit  un- 
known in  the  annals  of  the  Greeks,  who  admire  only  their  own 
heroes,  nor  yet  famous  enough  among  ourselves,  all  careless  as  we 
are  of  the  new,  while  extolling  the  old."  Nor  let  us  forget  how  in 
the  "  Agricola  "  the  sympathies  of  the  writer  go  with  the  oppressed 
Britons,  and  with  what  a  sense  of  humanity  he  describes,  in  the 
speech  of  the  Caledonian  chief,  the  desolating  march  of  the 
Roman  arms :  "  Plunderers  of  the  world,  after  lands  have  failed 
them  in  their  universal  devastation,  they  scour  the  sea.  To  carry 
off,  to  plunder,  to  butcher,  that  they  call  by  false  names,  —  em- 
pire,—  and  when  they  make  a  solitude  they  call  it  peace." 

But  the  prepossessions  of  Tacitus  for  the  old  regime  of  the  best 
days  of  the  commonwealth  it  is  easy  to  honor  and  admire ;  though 
these,  in  the  eyes  of  recent  advocates  or  apologists  of  the  imperial 
sovereignty,  are  prejudices  which  give  him  a  partisan  spirit  and 
bias  as  the  annalist  of  the  Caesars.  Undoubtedly  he  was  a  Roman 
republican  at  heart  and  in  theory,  attached  by  sympathy  and  con- 
viction as  a  thinker  and  student,  as  well  as  a  patriot,  to  the  consti- 
tution of  the  consular  government.  From  the  days  of  the  imperial 
system  in  which  he  lived,  when  all  the  interests  of  society  and 
humanity  hung  upon  the  will  of  one  man,  who  might,  to  be  sure, 
be  a  Trajan,  but  might  also  be  a  Domitian  or  a  Nero,  he  looked 
back  with  regret  to  those  securer,  better  times  when,  with  a  gov- 
ernment resting  upon  laws  controlled  and  ever  held  by  well-bal- 
anced forces  of  patricians  and  plebeians,  of  senate  and  people,  the 
power  tended  naturally  and  straight  to  the  best  citizens,  the  optimi 
—  the  apwn-ot  in  the  true  sense  of  these  words,  and  by  them  was 


TACITUS.  415 

exercised  for  the  common  good.  Such  a  look  of  noble  regret  we 
seem  to  see  on  the  very  face  of  the  historian,  when,  at  the  opening 
of  the  "Annals,"  after  speaking  of  the  first  generation  of  the  em- 
pire, now  nearing  old  age  under  one  man's  rule,  that  Roman  state 
with  all  its  precious  interest,  as  if  a  private  possession,  he  sadly 
exclaims,  "  how  few  even  of  the  old  men  were  left  who  saw  with 
their  own  eyes  the  corarao/i-wealth  ?  "  And  directly  he  adds :  "  in 
such  an  inversion  of  the  state,  not  a  vestige  anywhere  remained  of 
the  old,  uncorrupt  usage  of  our  fathers,  but  equality  now  utterly 
gone,  the  eyes  of  all  looked  only  to  the  orders  of  the  one  sover- 
eign." (Ann.  I.  4.)  A  modern  reader  must  be  a  worshiper  of 
absolute  power  who  is  not  touched  by  such  a  genuine  utterance 
of  a  true  Roman.  Let  me  cite  another  passage  which  comes  in 
to  relieve  a  long  series  of  imperial  inversions  of  Roman  life,  and 
revives  for  a  moment  the  glories  of  the  republic,  and  at  the  same 
time  illustrates  at  once  the  sentiments  of  the  historian  and  his 
manner  as  a  writer.  It  is  the  record  of  the  obsequies  of  Junia 
Tertullia,  solemnized  in  the  year  22,  the  eighth  of  Tiberius'  reign. 
This  Junia  was  the  sister  of  Marcus  Brutus,  and  the  wife  of  Cas- 
sius,  and  she  had  lingered  at  an  advanced  age  into  the  sixty-fourth 
year  since  the  battle  of  Philippi.  She  was  the  last  surviving  wit- 
ness in  imperial  Rome  of  the  glories  of  the  ancient  republic; 
and  it  was  a  stirring  spectacle  to  all  Rome  as  she  was  carried  in 
solemn  procession  to  the  family  tomb  of  her  illustrious  house. 
Before  her  remains  were  borne  the  images  of  twenty  of  the  no- 
blest Roman  families ;  but  the  clemency  of  the  emperor,  which 
permitted  all  other  solemn  honors  of  the  occasion,  suffered  not 
the  busts  of  her  illustrious  husband  and  brother,  the  republican 
chiefs  at  Philippi,  to  be  seen  in  the  funeral  procession;  but  the 
historian  furnishes  his  pictorial  records  with  the  words,  quite  his 
own,  that  "Brutus  and  Cassius  shone  forth  all  the  more  from 
the  very  absence  of  their  images  ("  Sed  prcefulgebant  Cassius 
atque  Brutus  eo  ipso  quod  effigies  eorum  non  visebantur."  A.  IIL 
96.)  These  republican  convictions  of  Tacitus,  often  expressed  in 
his  history,  were  never  absent  from  it  in  spirit,  as  they  never 
were  from  his  own  mind  and  heart.  He  wrote  it  all  by  the  light  of 
republican  and  senatorial  traditions.  Especially  did  he  love  and 
cherish,  and  most  justly,  too,  the  memories  of  the  Roman  senate ; 
he  venerated  its  august  character,  and  the  elevated  and  elevating 
influence  that  had  issued  from  it  through  the  period  of  the  com- 
monwealth ;  he  looked  back  to  it  as  the  home  and  safeguard  of 


416  TACITUS. 

Roman  freedom,  the  source  of  Roman  wisdom  and  virtue  and  pa- 
triotism. These  sentiments  he  shared,  too,  with  the  wisest  and 
best  of  his  countrymen  of  all  periods,  those  of  the  empire  not  ex- 
cepted.  Such  were  the  pronounced  sentiments  of  the  elder  Drusus 
in  the  reign  and  within  the  household  of  Augustus,  and  they  were 
never  visited  by  the  emperor  with  any  animadversion.  Such  were 
the  sentiments  of  the  renowned  Germanicus. 

The  memories  of  the  republic  lived,  indeed,  as  a  power  far  into 
the  empire,  and  long  after  its  own  life  was  extinct.  The  senate, 
"  the  last  shadow  of  the  free  state,"  had  life  enough  in  it  even 
under  the  empire  to  keep  the  respect  of  the  good  emperors  of  both 
the  Julian  and  the  Flavian  line,  and  to  win  from  the  worst  ones, 
as  especially  Domitian,  the  honorable  testimony  of  their  hate.  We 
find  a  signal  instance  of  the  long  lingering  influence  of  these  re- 
publican memories  in  the  choice  made  by  Galba,  in  his  brief  and 
hapless  reign,  of  his  successor  to  the  throne  by  adoption.  Galba, 
who  illustrated  in  his  character  the  finest  class  of  Roman  citizens, 
made  choice,  on  distinctly  republican  principles,  of  the  Licinian 
Piso,  as  the  worthiest  citizen,  by  personal  merit,  to  fill  the  imperial 
seat.  "  The  best  man  of  the  commonwealth,"  —  as  Mr.  Merivale 
admirably  puts  it,  —  "  thus  choosing  the  next  best  for  his  son,  his 
associate,  and  his  successor."  The  adoption  was  sanctioned  by 
the  senate,  by  the  army,  and  by  the  populace ;  and  but  for  the  vil- 
lainy of  Otho,  and  the  sudden  desertion  of  the  army,  Rome  had 
seen  the  strange  phenomenon  of  Piso  invested  with  the  purple  as 
a  republican  emperor  1  The  speeches  of  Galba  and  Piso  to  the 
senate  and  army,  as  they  are  recorded  by  Tacitus,  clearly  show  us 
that  something  of  the  vitality  of  the  old  Roman  life  had  survived 
the  deadly  malaria  of  the  long  Claudian  tyranny.  But  yet  our 
historian  was  no  visionary  or  impracticable  republican ;  he  was 
not  the  man,  like  the  tender  Germanicus,  to  dream  of  the  restora- 
tion of  the  commonwealth  in  the  broad  daylight  of  imperial  rule, 
nor  like  Thrasea  to  flaunt  the  worn  republican  banner  in  the  face 
of  a  Nero,  and  in  Nero's  reign  to  deck  himself  and  his  guests  with 
memorial  garlands  on  the  birthdays  of  Brutus  and  Cassius.  Only 
once  after  his  description  of  that  ill-fated  Pisonian  experiment, 
and  just  before  the  recital  of  the  battle  of  Bedriacum,  he  mentions 
the  transient  purpose  of  the  two  exhausted  armies,  the  Othonian 
and  the  Vitellian,  to  defer  to  the  senate  the  choice  of  a  suitable 
person  for  emperor,  with  the  expectation  that  Suetonius  Paulinus, 
then  the  oldest  of  the  consulars,  and  the  greatest  captain  of  the 


TACITUS.  417 

day,  would  be  the  man  of  their  choice.  But  he  adds  his  belief 
that  neither  Suetonius,  in  such  a  corrupt  time,  could  have  hoped 
for  the  requisite  moderation  on  the  part  of  the  people,  nor  could 
the  army  suffer  the  elevation  of  any  chief,  unless  he  was  first  cor- 
rupted himself,  and  fast  bound  to  them  by  their  services  to  him. 
In  a  passage  which  immediately  follows  (Hist.  II.  37),  united 
to  two  kindred  passages  in  the  "Annals"  (I.  1;  III.  25-28),  the 
historian  presents  in  a  few  pregnant  sentences  his  thoughtful  ex- 
position of  that  view  of  the  necessity  of  the  empire,  and  its  long 
working  causes,  which  has  been  often  expanded  into  chapters  and 
whole  books  by  modern  writers.  The  tendency  to  monarchy  in 
Roman  affairs  he  traces  back  to  its  beginning  in  the  civil  contest 
between  Marius  and  Sulla,  who  both  aimed  at  supreme  power. 
Pompey's  aim  was  as  surely  the  same  though  more  hidden,  and 
after  Pompey  nothing  but  the  principate  was  thought  of  by  chiefs 
and  their  factions  ("  nunquam  postea  nisi  de  principatu  qucesi- 
tum,"  Hist.  II.  38). 

The  monarchical  tendency  was  further  developed  in  the  two  tri- 
umvirates ;  and  while  in  the  former  the  power  of  Pompey  and  of 
Crassus  was  soon  merged  in  Julius  Caesar,  and  in  the  latter  that 
of  Antony,  and  of  Lepidus  in  Octavian,  yet  all  these  chiefs  indi- 
vidually aimed  at  that  supremacy  which  the  first  Caesar  attained, 
and  the  second  finally  established  in  the  empire.  I  may  stay  here 
a  moment  to  remark  that  Mr.  Merivale  most  unfairly  accuses 
Tacitus  of  "  unfairness  "  in  attempting,  as  he  says,  to  defend  the 
"corrupt  oligarchy  of  the  senate  under  Pompey"  as  "the  noblest 
and  strongest  of  governments."  So  far  from  this,  Tacitus  dis- 
tinctly states  that  Pompey's  rule  was  one  of  abounding  corrup- 
tion, though  it  abounded  in  laws  ("  corrnptissima  republica  plu- 
rimce  leges"  Ann.  III.  27).  Pompey,  he  adds,  "  chosen  to  correct 
abuses,  was  more  grievous  in  his  remedies  then  than  the  abuses 
had  been ;  and  at  once  author  and  subverter  of  laws,  he  finally 
lost  by  arms  what  by  arms  he  had  won."  Indeed,  it  was  in  the 
misrule  of  the  oligarchy  of  the  last  two  generations  of  the  repub- 
lic that  Tacitus  finds  one  of  the  chief  causes  for  the  inevitable 
necessity  of  that  imperial  polity  to  which  all  the  great  move- 
ments in  those  generations  were  manifestly  tending.  A  second 
and  a  kindred  one  he  found  in  the  degeneracy  and  moral  impo- 
tence of  the  people,  and  the  third  in  the  enormous  growth  of  the 
Roman  dominion,  for  the  rule  of  which  the  republican  consti- 
tution was  now  inadequate.  That  strong  and  great  government, 


418  TACITUS. 

which  under  the  old  Latin  word,  senatus  populusque  Romanus, 
had  gradually  advanced  Rome  to  the  supremacy  of  Italy,  and 
then  in  succession  of  all  the  countries  and  nations  around  the 
Mediterranean,  had  now  in  either  half  of  the  grand  unit  which  it 
represented  become  incapable  of  exercising  its  high  functions. 
The  successive  senatorial  chiefs  had  by  the  fierce  strifes  of  their 
faction  deluged  with  blood  the  capital  of  the  empire,  and  spread 
the  desolation  of  war  throughout  the  provinces  over  the  fairest 
regions  of  the  earth ;  and  these  provinces,  too,  had  been  plundered 
and  oppressed  by  the  misgovernment  of  extortionate  proconsuls 
and  propraetors.  And  the  people,  who  had  once  by  their  free  votes 
conferred  the  fasces  of  civil  office  and  the  insignia  of  military 
command,  had  learned  to  sell  themselves  to  the  highest  bidder,  and 
to  follow  in  the  train  of  any  great  chief  who  would  find  them  in 
bread  and  amusements.  Then,  too,  apart  from  these  abuses  the 
Roman  municipal  system,  which  worked  so  well  for  the  city  itself, 
and  by  the  extension  of  the  franchise  was  not  wholly  inadequate  to 
the  rule  of  Italy,  quite  broke  down  when  it  was  tried  upon  an 
empire  which  reached  from  the  Alps  to  the  farthest  Africa  and  from 
the  ocean  to  the  Euphrates.  This  truth  was  pithily  told  by  Taci- 
tus in  the  words  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Galba  on  the 
choice  of  Piso  as  his  successor.  "  If  the  immense  body  of  the  em- 
pire could  stand  firm  and  be  held  in  equipoise  without  a  sovereign 
ruler,  then  were  it  fitting  that  from  me  a  republic  should  take  its 
beginning ;  but  to  such  a  necessity  did  we  long  ago  come,  that 
now  neither  my  old  age  can  bestow  a  greater  gift  upon  the  Roman 
people  than  a  good  successor,  nor  your  youth  than  a  good  prince." 
(Hist.  I.  16.)  That  necessity  of  the  long  ago,  of  which  Galba  then 
spoke,  was  the  necessity  of  the  empire  as  Tacitus  states  it  when 
writing  of  the  Roman  affairs  of  just  a  century  before ;  when  the 
battle  of  Actium  had  at  last  put  an  end  to  the  long  course  of  de- 
structive civil  war,  and  it  was  for  the  interest  of  peace  that  all 
power  should  be  centred  in  one  man,  and  so  the  exhausted  Roman 
world  fell  easily  into  the  hands  of  the  favorite  Octavian,  who  now, 
the  last  of  his  antagonists  gone,  quietly  slid  into  an  imperial  throne 
on  the  very  last  step  to  which  his  illustrious  uncle  had  met  his  sud- 
den, violent  death.  The  events  of  a  century  had  left  this  neces- 
sity unchanged ;  and  Tacitus  in  his  times  accepted  it  as  unchange- 
able, and  knew  how  to  submit  to  it  with  resignation,  and  so  to 
write  of  it  and  all  its  momentous  results  as  to  be  at  once  a  loyal 
subject  and  good  citizen,  as  well  as  a  lover  of  his  country.  It  was 


TACITUS.  419 

at  the  end  of  the  Augustan  reign  that  he  began  his  "  Annals." 
Singularly  and  even  pettily  unjust  to  his  fame  are  certain  modern 
writers  who  charge  that  he  began  with  Tiberius  and  not  with  Au- 
gustus, because  as  a  Roman  republican  and  aristocrat  he  was  un- 
willing to  record  on  the  page  of  history  the  manifold  blessings  of 
peace  and  prosperity  which  the  empire  in  its  opening  brilliant 
era  conferred  on  the  whole  world.  But  in  fact  Tacitus,  in  one  or 
two  short  incidental  passages  in  each  of  his  works,  has  himself  fur- 
nished these  writers  with  the  brief  on  which  they  have  argued  the 
case  for  the  empire.  There  he  mentions  that  the  empire  brought 
in  at  last  the  longed  for  peace  and  order ;  and  especially  that  the 
provinces  hailed  it  as  giving  them  one  and  a  common  master  in- 
stead of  the  many  masters  of  the  senate  and  people  of  a  distant 
city.  And  at  the  beginning  of  his  "  Annals  "  he  says  himself 
why  he  does  not  tell  the  story  of  Augustus'  reign :  he  says  that  it 
has  been  already  told  by  men  of  the  fitting  genius,  who  lived  in 
that  reign,  probably  having  the  work  of  Livy  in  his  mind,  and 
intending  to  begin  where  his  great  predecessor  had  ended  his  task. 
But  if  he  had  lived  to  write  himself  of  the  Augustan  times,  as 
later  in  his  career  he  purposed  to  do,  he  would  doubtless  have 
illustrated  what  he  has  now  only  mentioned,  how  that  welcome 
peace  —  the  ever  vaunted  Pax  JKomana  —  was  nothing  but  the 
exhaustion  of  wars  begun  and  waged  by  chiefs  ambitious  of  abso- 
lute power,  and  came  only  when  there  were  no  chiefs  left  to  wage 
war,  none  with  whom  to  wage  it ;  and  that  the  fortunate  Augus- 
tus owed  his  imperial  elevation  to  his  own  solitude  and  the  lassi- 
tude of  the  world.  He  would  also  have  shown  that  the  prosper- 
ous Augustan  principate  chiefly  owed  its  prosperity  to  the  fact 
that  the  politic  Augustus  exercised  his  imperial  power  through 
the  senate  and  the  magistrates  of  the  now  bygone  republic.  But 
in  all  that  he  wrote  of  the  imperial  government,  as  established  by 
the  second  Ca3sar,  and  administered  by  his  successors,  he  taught 
the  great  truth  that  its  practical  working  for  good  or  evil  de- 
pended upon  the  character  and  will  of  the  reigning  prince,  and 
that  its  true  mission  was  to  unite  the  possession  of  absolute 
power  with  a  liberal  and  beneficent  sway.  This  idea  was  clearly 
expressed  in  that  wise  speech  of  Galba,  when  he  said  to  his 
adopted  successor :  "  You  are  to  reign  over  men,  who  can  bear 
neither  entire  liberty  nor  entire  servitude."  It  was  realized  by 
Trajan  as  Tacitus  so  enthusiastically  said  in  a  passage  I  have 
already  quoted.  It  was  the  lot  of  the  historian  to  write  chiefly 


420  TACITUS. 

of  reigns  during  which  the  emperors  were  men  of  despotic  wills, 
and  who  ruled  with  despotic  tyranny.  While  he  speaks  with 
abhorrence  of  the  vices  and  crimes  of  such  princes,  he  condemns 
alike  the  cringing  servility  and  the  contumacious  resistance  of  their 
subjects.  With  sadness  he  describes  the  subservience  of  senators 
and  nobles  to  Tiberius  as  not  only  humiliating  to  themselves,  but 
drawing  upon  them  the  contemptuous  scorn  and  disgust  of  the  em- 
peror, who  was  wont  to  exclaim  as  he  left  the  senate,  "  Oh,  men, 
fit  only  for  bondage  "  (Ann.  III.  65).  On  the  other  hand,  he  loves 
to  contemplate  the  examples  of  men  like  Agricola  and  Arruntius 
and  Pollio,  who,  by  the  union  of  dignity  and  moderation  with 
loyalty,  knew  how  to  live  as  good  men  under  bad  princes. 

I  have  had  in  mind  in  preparing  this  paper  rather  to  present 
the  aims  and  views  of  Tacitus  as  an  observer  and  judge  of  the 
times  of  which  he  wrote,  than  his  gifts  and  merits  as  a  writer ; 
but  these,  though  so  well  known  and  familiar,  I  must  not  leave 
untouched.  In  reading  his  works  you  are  ever  profoundly  con- 
scious of  the  presence  and  influence  of  his  genius  for  writing  his- 
tory, and  especially  for  that  imaginative  treatment  of  past  and  dis- 
tant events  which  ma.kes  it  historic  painting ;  and  you  are  disposed 
to  yield  yourself  to  it  a  willing  captive,  without  stopping  to  study 
the  secret  of  its  being  and  its  power.  But  by  reflection  you  are 
aware  of  the  rare  union  in  him  of  the  powers  of  thought  and  rea- 
soning which  belong  to  a  philosophic  mind  with  the  gifts  of  creation 
and  vivid  description  which  enter  so  largely  into  the  rich  endowment 
of  a  poetic  nature.  His  narrative  is  not  only  intelligent  and  clear 
and  strong ;  not  only  informed  and  enriched  with  thought  and 
wisdom,  but  also  is  picturesque  and  affecting.  As  you  pass  with 
him  through  all  that  vast  moving  world  of  the  Rome  of  the  Cae- 
sars, you  have  one  at  your  side  who  has  mastered  every  new  situ- 
ation, and  is  ready  with  mind  and  eye  and  tongue  to  help  you 
master  it  yourself.  By  study  and  insight  he  has  come  to  behold 
so  distinctly  the  persons  and  events  of  which  he  writes,  in  their 
appearance  and  in  their  essential  character,  and  the  influences 
which  have  made  and  shaped  them,  and  he  reproduces  them  so 
vividly,  and  sets  them  before  you  sometimes  in  pictures,  as  so  often 
in  the  "  Annals,"  sometimes  in  dramatic  scenes,  as  in  the  narra- 
tive of  those  tragic  horrors  of  the  civil  war  of  Otho  and  Vitellius, 
that  all  seems  to  be  present  to  you  as  living  reality.  As  you 
read  that  narrative  of  the  battle  of  Bedriacum,  you  seem  to  be 
gazing  yourself  on  the  bloody  field,  to  see  the  serried  masses  of 


TACITUS.  421 

troops  —  Romans  all  on  both  sides  —  set  against  each  in  the 
shock  of  murderous  array  by  their  chiefs,  through  the  lust  of 
power,  brothers  slaughtering  brothers,  and  even  sons  their  fathers. 
But  what  pathos  is  there  in  that  scene  of  the  next  morning,  when, 
after  a  capitulation,  the  gates  of  the  Othonian  camp  were  flung 
open,  and  the  surviving  soldiers,  victors  and  vanquished,  fell  sob- 
bing into  one  another's  arms,  friends  and  brothers  tending  each 
other's  wounds,  and  all  denouncing  the  wickedness  of  civil  war. 
As  you  sit  within  doors  and  read  that  thrilling  story  of  the  great 
Neronian  fire,  you  get  the  impressions  of  the  whole  so  fastened  on 
your  mind,  and  carry  them  so  in  your  eyes  and  all  your  senses, 
the  smoke  and  blaze  and  din,  and  the  blistering  heat,  half  the 
population  flung  houseless  into  the  streets,  roaming  ruffians  add- 
ing fuel  to  the  devouring  flames  and  hurling  blazing  brands  into 
houses  yet  untouched  by  the  fire,  temples  and  palaces  and  villas 
with  booths  and  cabin  all  merged  together  in  one  huge  wild  con- 
flagration, —  all  is  so  intensely  real  to  you  that  you  shudder  and 
look  about  you  as  from  the  midst  of  all  burning  Rome  yourself. 
A  picture  of  a  far  different  subject,  but  in  the  best  manner  of 
the  same  master,  is  presented,  in  the  story  of  the  funeral  honors 
done  to  Germanicus  when  his  remains  arrived  at  the  port  of  Brun- 
dusium  and  were  borne  thence  in  long  solemn  train  along  the 
highways  of  Italy  to  the  walls  of  Rome.  You  see  in  the  fore- 
ground the  ship  just  touching  the  wharf,  the  adjacent  shores  and 
the  walls  and  tops  of  the  houses  filled  with  the  multitude  straining 
their  sad  eyes  at  its  coming.  Agrippina  descends  its  side,  bearing 
the  funeral  urn,  her  eyes  cast  down,  and  her  two  children  by  her 
side,  and  is  received  in  tender  silence  by  the  waiting  mourning 
throng,  grief  as  for  a  personal  loss  visible  on  the  faces  of  all,  and 
in  the  common  aspect  of  sorrow  citizens  undistinguished  from  for- 
eigners, relations  and  friends  from  strangers.  Then  begins  to  go 
on  its  sad  way  the  solemn  funeral  train,  two  praetorian  cohorts 
in  advance,  their  ensigns  all  in  mourning,  and  with  the  fasces 
reversed,  next  all  the  magistrates  of  the  surrounding  cities  and 
towns,  followed  by  crowds  of  people  of  all  ranks,  the  knights  in 
purple  and  the  populace  in  black.  Onward  it  moves,  stretching 
far  in  the  distance  along  the  public  roads,  swelled  ever  by  acces- 
sions from  the  colonies  and  towns  as  it  passes  along,  altars  by  the 
wayside  erected  to  the  memory  of  the  illustrious  deceased,  and 
the  fragrance  of  burning  perfumes  filling  the  air,  till  you  discern 
far  away  the  procession  coming  out  from  the  city,  the  consuls  and 


422  TACITUS. 

senate  at  their  head,  and  a  great  multitude  behind  filling  all  the 
road.  The  fitting  salutations  given  and  received,  all  join  to- 
gether, and  enter  through  the  city  gates  into  the  Forum,  where, 
after  appropriate  ceremonies,  the  precious  remains  are  borne  to 
the  Mausoleum  and  laid  away  in  that  last  resting-place  of  the 
Caesars.  But  I  may  not  linger  in  further  illustration  of  this  as- 
pect of  Tacitus  as  a  writer.  I  hasten  to  touch  another  and  a 
kindred  one,  his  well-nigh  unrivaled  power  in  the  delineation  of 
character. 

The  chief  personages  of  his  history  are  so  seized  by  his  firm  grasp 
of  insight  and  so  distinctly  and  strongly  exhibited,  as  if  painted 
on  the  canvas  or  wrought  into  the  solid  marble,  that  whether  you 
meet  them  in  groups  or  alone,  they  stand  out  each  a  known  and 
ever  recognized  individuality.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the  em- 
perors, the  central  figures  on  his  pages,  even  as  they  were  in  all 
the  Roman  life  which  they  describe.  When,  after  studying  those 
pages,  we  have  become  familiar  with  these  imperial  characters  thus 
conceived  and  represented  by  the  historian,  we  ever  after  discern 
and  know  them  wherever  they  reappear  in  whatsoever  situation, 
with  whatsoever  ample  surroundings,  whether  in  the  palace  or  in 
the  senate  or  in  the  throngs  of  people  at  the  public  shows  in  the 
arena  or  in  the  theatre.  It  is  much  like  the  experience  of  one 
who  has  passed  a  winter  in  Rome  and  has  many  a  time  walked  up 
and  down  the  halls  and  galleries  of  the  Vatican,  where  all  about 
him  are  ranged  in  such  multitudinous  array  the  busts  and  statues 
of  these  men  who  in  different  times  have  acted  a  more  or  less  im- 
portant part  in  Roman  affairs,  and  has  come  so  to  know  by  oft 
repeated  gaze  the  more  strongly  marked  and  individualized  fig- 
ures, that  he  always  recognizes  them  and  takes  them  out  with  eye 
and  mind  from  the  wilderness  of  marble  forms  in  the  midst  of 
which  he  is  wandering.  So  with  these  masterpieces  of  historic 
sculpture,  especially  of  the  emperors  of  the  Julian  and  Claudian 
line.  There  are,  indeed,  certain  family  features  in  the  historian's 
delineations  which  they  have  in  common,  but  you  have  a  separate 
sharply  defined  individuality  of  character  in  the  dismal  and  dis- 
sembling Tiberius,  the  well-meaning  but  weak  and  woman-ridden 
Claudius,  and  the  vain,  profligate  Nero.  So  is  it  with  the  figures 
of  the  later  emperors — of  Otho  the  voluptuary,  and  yet  not  want- 
ing in  manly  traits,  chasing  after  pleasure  up  to  the  two  or  three 
last  years  of  his  life,  dissolving  ever  in  sensual  delights,  yet,  when 
with  the  prospect  of  the  throne  before  him,  suddenly  throwing 


TACITUS.  423 

off,  like  Henry  V.  of  England,  all  his  old  habits,  and  giving  him- 
self strenuously  to  business  and  work,  and  when  as  suddenly, 
disenchanted  of  his  vision  of  power  by  his  defeat  in  decisive  bat- 
tle, calmly  laying  himself  down  to  die,  his  last  expressed  wishes 
and  thoughts  for  the  peace  of  his  country ;  and  Otho's  rival,  the 
brutally  sensual  Vitellius,  who  yet  in  the  extremity  of  death,  when 
shockingly  maltreated  by  the  soldiers,  and  cut  down  with  many 
wounds,  forgot  not  that  he  had  filled  the  imperial  throne,  and 
in  his  last  breath  made  answer  to  the  last  insulting  soldier,  "yet  I 
was  once  your  emperor,"  the  only  word  he  ever  uttered,  as  Tacitus 
says,  which  could  make  good  his  claim  to  a  not  degenerate  mind 
("wow  degeneris  animi"  Hist.  III.  85).  And  how,  in  few  words, 
how  fully  is  Galba  described,  —  of  mediocrity  of  genius  and  rather 
free  from  vices  rather  than  possessed  of  virtues,  a  renowned  sol- 
dier, an  able  and  just  proconsul,  —  too  great  for  a  private  man,  so 
long  as  he  remained  one,  and  by  universal  consent  fit  to  bear  im- 
perial rule,  had  he  never  ruled.  But  also  in  his  profound  obser- 
vation and  vivid  descriptions  of  the  inner  life  of  men,  in  all  the 
manifold  and  complex  workings  of  the  soul,  in  the  play  and  strife 
of  contending  passions  and  desires  and  motives,  Tacitus  shows  his 
remarkable  power  as  a  writer.  He  was  prone  by  nature  to  such 
mental  and  moral  studies  into  the  vast  inner  world  of  human  life 
and  character,  but  these  natural  tendencies  were  fostered  and  de- 
veloped by  the  despotisms  of  those  fifteen  years  of  Domitian's 
reign  in  which  he  lived,  which,  by  dooming  to  silence  all  voice 
and  speech  in  ordinary  intercourse,  drove  men  in  upon  themselves, 
and  taught  them  to  discern  and  know  the  presence  of  inward  emo- 
tions and  purposes  and  habits  by  the  outward  look  and  bearing 
and  conduct.  In  a  memorable  passage  in  the  "Agricola,"  Tacitus 
describes  the  dark  experience  of  the  senate  in  their  relations  to  Do- 
mitian,  as  the  misery  of  seeing  and  being  seen,  when  their  very 
sighs  were  written  down  against  them,  and  when  that  fierce  red 
face  of  the  tyrant,  so  full  of  dread  significance,  was  enough,  with- 
out aught  of  articulate  speech,  to  spread  paleness  over  the  faces  of 
all  the  senators.  He  had  become  himself  profoundly  skilled  in 
such  studies  of  the  souls  of  men,  and  could  trace  home  all  outward 
symptoms  to  the  mental  and  moral  states  of  which  they  were  the 
manifestation.  Hence  when  he  came  to  write  and  to  follow  and 
narrate  the  course  of  Roman  affairs,  he  unfolded  their  causes,  so 
often  hidden  from  ordinary  view,  in  the  prevailing  motives  and 
habits  of  thought  and  feeling  of  the  actors  in  that  great  scene  of 


424  TACITUS. 

public  life.  He  developed  and  manifested  an  extraordinary  power 
in  piercing  through  the  mists  and  clouds  of  caution  and  reserve, 
or  of  deception  and  hypocrisy,  which  hung  over  the  nature  and 
character  of  men,  and  bared  to  the  light  of  day  the  inmost  recesses 
of  their  souls,  and  exposed  their  most  hidden  purposes  and  mo- 
tives. When  Agricola's  dispatches  came  home  from  Britain,  all 
decked  with  laureled  badges  of  victory,  or  within  by  the  pomp  of 
boastful  words,  Domitian  received  them  with  a  face  of  joy,  but 
Tacitus  saw  the  dissembler's  soul  was  vexed  with  jealous  anxiety ; 
and  when  Agricola,  after  his  forced  return  from  Britain,  comes 
into  the  imperial  presence  to  ask  to  be  excused  from  the  command 
of  a  higher  province,  because  he  knew  he  would  not  be  allowed  to 
accept  it,  the  historian  sees  quite  through  the  grand  air  of  favor 
with  which  Domitian  accepts  the  excuse ;  "  Domitian,"  he  adds, "  al- 
lowed thanks  to  be  paid  him,  nor  blushed  at  the  odious  kindness." 
(Agr.  42).  Everywhere  is  illustrated  in  our  historian  this  union 
of  insight  into  men's  hearts  with  a  pictorial  force  of  description. 
As  in  the  instances  I  have  given  you  see  the  secret  jealousy  of 
tyrants,  and  the  victims'  dread  fear  in  their  looks,  their  whispers, 
the  pallor  on  their  faces,  so  in  many  others  you  see  the  wretched 
misgivings  which  haunt  the  breasts  of  imperial  favorites,  hanging 
so  perilously  on  their  princes'  favors,  the  doubts  and  fears  which 
crowd  the  paths  of  ambition,  the  odious  passions  that  lurk  behind 
the  words  of  flattery  and  adulation,  the  servility  of  a  shouting 
populace,  or  of  an  assenting  senate,  and  none  the  less  the  very 
solitude  of  imperial  greatness,  the  horrors  that  wait  on  a  tyranni- 
cal will  and  a  licentious  heart  and  life,  the  fires  of  remorse,  the 
worm  of  conscience.  These  last,  the  awful  penalties  of  guilt,  are 
most  vividly  illustrated  in  Tacitus'  description  of  the  last  days  of 
Tiberius.  In  his  delineation  of  the  character  of  this  emperor  the 
historian  has  been  severely  criticised  by  modern  writers  of  the  im- 
perial school,  who  see  in  Julius  Caesar  a  grand  prevailing  aim  for 
the  moral  regeneration  of  the  world,  and  who  have  words  of  ten- 
derest  charity  for  a  Catiline,  a  Caligula,  and  a  Nero.  But  unpre- 
judiced readers  must  needs  find  in  this  delineation  of  the  third 
Caesar  clearest  marks  of  consistency  and  truthfulness.  Tacitus  ad- 
mits that  before  Tiberius'  accession  to  the  throne  he  was  an  able 
soldier  and  ruler.  He  accords  him  also  wisdom  and  justice,  as 
well  as  ability  in  his  imperial  policy,  during  the  first  years  of  his 
reign.  But  he  discerns  in  him  in  remarkable  degree  the  sullen 
and  despotic  nature  that  marks  the  whole  Claudian  house,  and 


TACITUS.  425 

especially  the  tendencies  to  cruelty  and  lust,  which,  restrained  by 
his  surroundings  in  the  earlier  years  of  his  imperial  rule,  at  last 
broke  forth  into  the  most  hideous  excesses,  when,  after  the  death 
of  Livia,  he  was  no  longer  restrained  by  her  maternal  influence. 
How  forcible  and  comprehensive  are  the  historian's  closing  words 
in  his  brief  portraiture  of  Tiberius  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  book  of 
the  "Annals."  "At  last  he  abandoned  himself  at  once  to  the  rage 
of  tyranny  and  the  sway  of  lust,  for  he  had  conquered  the  checks 
of  shame  and  fear,  and  thenceforth  followed  the  bent  of  his  own 
spirit."  We  need  no  better  commentary  on  these  words  than  the 
words  of  the  emperor  himself  in  a  letter  which,  in  that  period,  he 
sent  in  to  the  senate.  "  What  to  write  to  you,  Conscript  Fathers, 
or  in  what  manner  to  write,  or  what  at  all  not  to  write,  if  I  know 
myself,  then  may  all  gods  and  goddesses  confound  me  worse,  than 
I  now  feel  day  by  day  confounded."  "  So,"  writes  the  historian 
in  the  immediately  following  passage,  "  so  did  his  own  disgraceful 
crimes  turn  to  his  own  dire  punishment."  Then  with  an  allusion 
to  a  remarkable  passage  in  Plato,  the  historian  continues :  "  Not 
in  vain  did  that  wisest  of  writers  declare  (Gorg.  524),  that  if  the 
hearts  of  tyrants  were  laid  bare,  there  would  be  seen  mental  tear- 
ings  and  tortures,  since  as  the  body  is  lashed  by  scourges  so  is  the 
soul  by  cruelty  and  lust"  (Ann.  VI.  6).  The  younger  Pliny  in 
one  of  his  letters  (VII.  33)  to  Tacitus,  writes :  "  I  augur,  nor  does 
the  augury  deceive  me,  that  your  histories  will  be  immortal ;  and 
I  will  frankly  confess  that  I  desire  my  name  to  find  mention  in 
them."  But  there  is  a  passage  in  the  "  Institutes  "  of  Quintilian, 
the  contemporary  and  also  the  rhetorical  teacher  of  the  historian, 
which  in  far  finer  tone  predicts  a  like  fame  to  his  works.  With  a 
singular  delicacy  of  compliment  he  does  not  mention  his  pupil  by 
name,  preferring  to  have  it  elegantly  understood.  It  is  the  last 
sentence  of  the  section  on  the  Roman  historians.  After  mention- 
ing Sallust  and  Livy  and  others,  he  thus  concludes :  "  There  is  yet 
living  and  adorning  the  glory  of  our  time,  and  worthy  the  remem- 
brance of  the  ages,  one  who  will,  by  and  by,  be  named  in  the  his- 
tory of  letters,  but  now  is  only  to  be  understood"  Now,  and  how 
fully  and  perhaps  widely  beyond  the  Roman  professor's  conception 
of  his  own  words,  has  this  prophecy  been  fulfilled.  About  a  cen- 
tury after  the  death  of  Tacitus,  the  emperor  of  the  same  name,  who 
claimed  descent  from  the  historian,  ordered  his  works  to  be  placed 
in  all  the  public  libraries,  and  ten  copies  to  be  made  every  year  at 
public  expense,  and  deposited  in  the  archives.  At  the  revival  of 


426  TACITUS. 

classical  learning  these  historical  works  found  ardent  students  in 
such  men  as  Cosmo  de  Medici  in  Italy,  and  Grotius  and  Lipsius 
in  Holland ;  and  these  distinguished  scholars  and  promoters  of 
letters  have  passed  down  their  admiration  to  a  long  succession  of 
classical  students  of  all  countries  and  periods.  Successive  histori- 
ans of  Roman  literature  have  taken  up  the  word  of  Quintilian  and 
repeated  it  in  more  pronounced  form,  and  in  our  own  day  that 
prophetic  Quintilian  word  may  be  sent  on  to  coming  times  with 
fuller  meaning  —  "  qui  olim  nominabitur  vir  sceculorum  memoria 
dignua" 


GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

WRITTEN   FOR   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,    JANUARY   14,  1879. 

THE  interesting  paper  upon  Lessing,  recently  read  to  the  club, 
brought  before  us  for  discussion,  among  other  important  points 
suggested  by  the  career  of  Lessing,  the  alternative  of  free  inquiry 
or  the  authority  of  an  infallible  church.  I  was  at  first  inclined  to 
ask  the  club  to  devote  an  evening  in  pursuance  of  that  discussion 
to  a  special  consideration  of  the  views  and  the  consequent  fortunes 
of  Lessing  as  a  theological  writer ;  but  on  reflection  it  seemed  to 
me  better  to  go  back  farther  in  the  history  of  modern  thought, 
and  to  attempt  a  review  of  the  career  of  Galileo  Galilei  and  its 
tragical  fate  as  furnishing  a  signally  instructive  illustration  of  the 
just  mentioned  alternative  in  its  liberal  form,  and  no  less  of  the 
larger  issue  which  belongs  just  as  vitally  to  our  own  days  as  it 
belonged  to  the  days  alike  of  Lessing  and  of  Galileo,  —  the  issue 
not  so  much  between  science,  despotism  of  any  ecclesiastical 
authority,  whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  and  religion,  but  be- 
tween the  freedom  of  scientific  inquiry  and  theological  authority, 
whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  Episcopal  or  Presbyterian  or  In- 
dependent. 

I  was  the  more  easily  drawn  to  this  theme  for  my  paper  from 
having  recently  read  a  new  book  on  Galileo,  written  in  German 
by  Karl  von  Gebler,  a  work  of  great  vigor  and  thoroughness,  of 
genuine  German  diligence  as  well  as  honesty  ;  and  by  the  skillful 
use  made  by  its  author  of  new  material  derived  from  original 
sources,  it  made  a  new  departure  in  the  literature  of  Galileo's  life, 
and  especially  of  his  relations  to  the  Roman  Inquisition.  Von 
Gebler  has  the  distinction  of  being  the  first  to  set  in  clear  and 
comprehensive  narrative  the  abundant  documentary  material 
which  has  only  recently  been  drawn  out  from  its  long  conceal- 
ment in  the  secret  archives  of  the  Holy  See,  and  published  to  the 
world  in  the  interests  of  truth  and  knowledge.  For  more  than 
two  centuries  after  the  trial  of  the  great  Italian  astronomer  no 
official  source  of  knowledge  was  accessible  to  historical  writers 
except  the  bare  statement  of  the  case  contained  in  the  final  sen- 


428  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

tence.  During  most  of  this  long  period  the  huge  pile  of  manu- 
script, containing  all  the  documents  belonging  to  the  proceedings 
of  the  trial,  lay  in  the  darkness  of  the  Papal  archives,  unused, 
unapproached,  and  persistently  denied  to  all  historical  inquirers. 
Singularly  enough,  it  was  reserved  for  the  circumstance  of  war,  for 
the  rude  stir  of  French  arms  in  the  Italian  campaigns  of  the  first 
empire,  to  dislodge  the  Vatican  manuscript  from  its  hiding-place, 
and  to  let  it  forth  into  the  air  and  light  of  the  outer  world ;  for  on 
the  taking  and  occupation  of  Rome  by  Napoleon's  troops,  this  doc- 
ument, together  with  other  historical  treasures,  was  seized  and  car- 
ried away  to  Paris  with  the  intention,  as  it  afterwards  appeared 
from  a  learned  report  upon  it  found  in  the  bureau  of  Napoleon's 
Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  to  have  the  whole  published  in  the 
original  Italian  and  Latin,  with  an  accompanying  French  transla- 
tion. But  on  the  fall  and  the  exile  of  Napoleon  the  publication  of 
the  Galileo  Vatican  manuscript  was  left  behind  him  in  Paris  as  one 
of  the  humblest,  perhaps,  but  certainly  one  of  the  best  of  his  many 
unfulfilled  projects.  It  would  far  exceed  my  limits  to  recount  the 
history,  most  curiously  detailed  by  Herr  von  Gebler  in  the  Appen- 
dix to  his  work,  of  the  various  diplomatic  arts  employed  during 
many  years  by  successive  Popes,  through  their  Nuncios  at  Paris, 
to  get  back  their  lost  manuscript  to  the  Vatican  bureau  which  had 
been  for  two  centuries  its  prescriptive  home,  or  of  the  counter  arts, 
no  less  diplomatic,  practiced  by  the  ministers  of  successive  French 
sovereigns  to  evade,  without  once  or  for  an  instant  refusing,  a  con- 
summation so  devoutly  wished.  At  last,  in  1845,  on  an  applica- 
tion for  the  manuscript  being  made  to  Louis  Philippe  by  Gregory 
XVI.,  through  Count  Rossi,  the  French  Ambassador  at  Rome,  the 
answer  was  immediately  given  that  it  should  at  once  be  restored  on 
the  condition  that  it  be  published  in  Rome,  full  and  entire;  and 
on  the  formal  acceptance  of  this  condition  as  a  sine  qua  non,  the 
manuscript  was  then  restored  to  the  possession  of  the  Holy  See. 
The  obligation  which  was  thus  assumed  by  the  Papal  government 
in  the  person  of  Pope  Gregory  XVI.  has,  unfortunately  for  the 
good  faith  of  that  government,  never  been  discharged.  Only  one 
official  attempt  to  discharge  it  has  ever  been  made,  and  that  a  par- 
tial one  in  itself,  and  also  partially  made.  This  was  a  work  pub- 
lished in  1850  by  Monsignore  Marini,  which,  so  far  from  being  a 
publication  of  the  Vatican  manuscript,  full  and  entire,  was  only 
an  advocate's  report  of  the  trial,  consisting  of  extracts  from  the 
records  so  selected  and  arranged  and  annotated  as  to  defend  and 


GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION.  429 

glorify  the  tribunal.  This  work  once  issued,  as  if  in  discharge  in 
full  of  all  papal  obligations,  the  manuscript  went  straight  back  to 
its  old  sacred  place  in  the  Papal  archives  by  order  of  Pio  Nono, 
and  for  nearly  twenty  years  after  was  kept  safe  under  lock  and 
key  from  the  profane  eyes  and  hands  of  historical  inquirers  and 
writers.  At  last,  however,  more  liberal  counsels  prevailed  at  the 
Vatican,  and  in  1867  permission  was  granted  by  the  Prefect  of  the 
Papal  Archives  to  Henri  de  1'Epinois,  an  eminent  French  scholar, 
to  examine  the  famous  manuscript  and  to  appropriate  it  as  he 
might  choose  in  whole  or  in  part  to  literary  uses.  The  final  result 
of  M.  de  1'Epinois'  examination  was  the  publication  at  Paris  of  a 
valuable  work  in  which  he  gave  to  the  world,  together  with  an  ex- 
position of  the  trial,  not  indeed  the  whole  manuscript,  but  yet  all 
its  most  important  documents  printed  entire  and  in  the  ipsissima 
verba  of  the  originals.  In  the  year  1870,  another  collection  of 
Galileo  documents  was  published  at  Florence  by  Professor  Silves- 
tro  Gherardi,  which  embraced  records  of  sessions  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion and  of  its  Decrees,  chiefly  belonging  to  the  period  subsequent 
to  the  trial.  It  is  in  the  light  of  the  full  knowledge,  now  given 
for  the  first  time  in  these  two  works,  of  the  entire  proceeding  of 
the  Inquisition  against  Galileo,  that  Herr  von  Gebler  has  written 
his  book.  From  the  central  point  of  view  which  he  has  reached 
through  a  thorough  study  of  the  complete  records  of  this  cele- 
brated trial,  he  has  rewritten  its  history,  treating  it,  however,  not 
as  an  isolated  event  in  Galileo's  life,  but  setting  it  in  its  proper 
place  and  with  all  its  surroundings  in  the  larger  history,  out  of 
which  it  grew,  of  his  whole  personal  and  scientific  career.  All 
fair-minded  readers  of  his  pages  will  allow  that  the  author  has 
written  his  book  with  an  impartial  spirit,  nothing  extenuating  nor 
setting  down  aught  in  malice.  They  will  see  him  acquitting  the 
Inquisition  of  some  traditional  charges  of  cruel  treatment  of  Gali- 
leo, but  substantiating  others  of  weightier  import  which  come  un- 
der the  same  head  ;  vindicating  its  official  conduct  in  some  points 
as  most  consistent,  condemning  it  as  in  others  most  inconsistent 
with  the  principles  of  the  church  which  it  represented ;  but  they 
will  find  nothing  in  all  his  showings  to  beget  admiration  or  ap- 
proval of  those  principles  themselves ;  very  much  does  the  author 
set  forth  in  plain  narrative  to  awaken  indignation  at  the  intolerance 
of  this  Holy  tribunal  which  laid  such  an  iron  pressure  upon  the 
development  of  science ;  and  quite  enough,  too,  in  the  shape  of  ar- 
gument most  difficult  to  answer,  which  goes  to  invalidate  alike  the 


430  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

ecclesiastical  and  the  legal  basis  on  which  it  rested  its  sentence  of 
condemnation.  Indeed,  the  story  of  Galileo's  fate,  as  told  again 
in  this  book,  is  found  to  be  wanting,  in  its  aspect  as  to  both  of  the 
parties  to  the  case,  in  those  elements  of  powerful  and  commanding 
interest  which  belong  to  other  world-famous  persecutions  for  the 
sake  of  conscience  and  truth.  Galileo  himself  appears  in  it  in  the 
same  strange  contrasts  as  always  before,  of  intellectual  strength 
and  moral  weakness,  of  freedom  in  following  after  and  reaching 
the  most  exalted  views,  and  of  servility  in  abandoning  them  in  the 
crucial  hour  of  personal  trial.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Cardi- 
nal Judges  of  the  prosecuting  Holy  Office,  with  all  their  persistent 
purpose  to  perpetuate  the  prestige  of  their  church,  there  was 
wanting  that  passionate  earnestness  which  has  sometimes  given  a 
kind  of  demi-relievo  to  the  frightful  spectacle  of  religious  fanati- 
cism ;  they  evidently  lacked  that  fierce  faith  in  themselves  and 
their  cause  which  can  in  any  wise  reconcile  us  to  the  intolerance 
of  a  fanatical  tribunal.  But  if  the  parties  which  were  set  over 
against  each  other  in  this  trial  appear  to  have  been  thus  wanting 
in  personal  moral  decision,  the  principles  which  they  respectively 
represented  are  clearly  seen  as  joined  in  most  decisive  conflict. 
It  is  the  conflict  of  those  principles  which  went  on  in  the  Gali- 
leo trial  —  the  principle  of  free  scientific  inquiry  on  the  one 
side,  and  on  the  other  of  compulsory  ecclesiastical  and  theological 
authority  —  which  gives  to  the  trial  its  chief  interest  for  us  who 
look  back  to  it  now  from  this  distance  of  more  than  two  centuries. 
The  same  principles,  though  under  changed  forms  and  changed 
conditions,  are  in  conflict  in  our  day,  and  the  conflict  now  enters 
perhaps  more  vitally  than  anything  else  into  the  higher  intellec- 
tual life  of  the  world.  The  conflict  ended  then,  as  end  it  needs 
must,  in  the  submission  of  one  of  the  contending  parties,  and  the 
instructive  thing  to  be  noted  is,  that  then  it  was  a  submission  at 
first  wrested  by  force  from  the  first  philosopher  and  astronomer 
of  the  time  by  the  Roman  Inquisition,  and  not  many  years  after 
won  by  the  influence  of  truth  from  the  Church  represented  in 
that  Inquisition. 

The  life  of  Galileo  fell  in  a  time  when  the  movement  for  spirit- 
ual freedom,  which  even  in  Italy  had  reached  and  won  the  best 
minds  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  now  on  the 
retrograde.  It  was  the  18th  February,  1564,  on  which  Galileo 
Galilei,  the  son  of  a  Florentine  nobleman,  Vincenzo  Galilei,  and 
his  wife,  Julia  Ammanati,  was  born  in  Pisa ;  the  very  same  day 


GALILEO  AND   THE   INQUISITION.  431 

on  which  Michael  Angelo  died ;  so  that  one  and  the  same  day 
robbed  Florence  of  her  greatest  artist,  and  gave  her  her  greatest 
philosopher.  The  very  beginnings  of  a  religious  reformation  in 
Italy  had  been  crushed  by  the  Inquisitors  of  Paul  IV.,  and  in  the 
recently  founded  Order  of  the  Jesuits  the  church  had  at  its  dis- 
posal an  army,  admirably  generaled  and  admirably  trained  in 
rank  and  file,  which  counted  as  its  life-work  the  suppression  of  all 
opposition  to  Papal  authority  quite  as  much  as  the  recovery  of 
heretics.  The  papacy  began  to  reestablish  itself  firmly  in  its 
newly-fortified  domain ;  without,  it  labored  by  all  methods  of  cun- 
ning and  violence  to  subject  again  to  its  sway  the  Protestant 
churches ;  and  within,  the  fate  of  Giordano  Bruno  was  a  beacon 
warning  of  what  all  those  had  to  expect  who  might  venture  to 
oppose  their  own  opinions  to  the  dogmas  of  the  church,  their  own 
will  to  the  decrees  of  ecclesiastical  power.  Thus  it  soon  came  to 
pass,  that  no  theology,  no  philosophy  might  be  taught  or  held 
which  deviated  from  sanctioned  church  standards,  and  that  all  in- 
quiry in  the  realm  of  nature  and  of  history  was  watched  with  sus- 
picious .eyes  and  kept  subject  to  most  rigid  censorship.  Yet  the 
church  was  too  sagacious  to  renounce  all  science,  partly  because  it 
was  indispensable  to  her  own  ends,  and  partly,  too,  because  it  was 
quite  too  strong  in  its  own  indefeasible  rights  for  such  renuncia- 
tion to  be  possible.  It  is  in  the  light  of  this  very  general  prelimi- 
nary view  of  the  situation  that  we  may  reach  an  understanding  of 
Galileo's  relation  to  the  church  of  his  time.  Profound  and  radical 
as  was  the  inner  opposition  of  his  scientific  views  to  the  dogmatic 
theology  of  the  church,  it  developed  itself  very  gradually,  and  with 
reserve  on  both  sides,  into  an  outward  conflict.  One  must  remem- 
ber, too,  that  Galileo  was  no  skeptic  or  free-thinker,  but  a  sincere 
Christian  believer,  and  never  considered  himself  an  opponent  in 
opinion  or  word  to  the  rightly  interpreted  teachings  of  the  Bible. 
After  Galileo  had  once  reached,  through  many  a  perplexed  path, 
his  true  vocation  as  a  student  of  mathematics  and  natural  philoso- 
phy, he  soon  became  known  by  his  conspicuous  merits,  and  in  the 
year  1589  was  appointed  to  a  professorship  of  mathematics  in  Pisa. 
The  appointment  was  only  for  three  years  and  at  an  annual  salary 
of  only  sixty  scudi ;  but  it  gave  him  an  acknowledged  position  in 
the  learned  world,  and  a  place  for  scientific  study  and  labors  in 
which  he  might  rise  to  higher  usefulness  and  distinction.  But 
this  brief  period  of  three  years  was  cut  short  by  his  brilliant  suc- 
cess in  science  joined  to  the  envy  of  his  colleagues,  and  the  in- 


432  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

trigues  of  enemies  whom  nothing  but  his  merits  had  gained  him. 
In  1592,  in  consequence  of  the  vexatious  intrigues  of  his  enemies, 
Galileo  left  Pisa,  the  place  of  his  birth,  and  its  university,  the 
place  of  his  education,  and  entered  into  the  service  of  the  Repub- 
lic of  Venice,  as  professor  in  the  University  of  Padua.  Opening 
here  his  first  course  of  lectures  with  a  brilliant  inaugural,  he  soon 
gathered  to  his  lecture  room  large  classes  of  enthusiastic  pupils, 
and  went  on  for  many  years  in  a  series  of  studies  and  labors  fruit- 
ful of  inventions  and  discoveries  in  many  departments  of  science 
and  especially  in  astronomy.  In  a  letter  to  Kepler,  in  whom  he 
had  a  faithful  friend  and  ally,  he  declares  that  he  had  been  con- 
vinced for  many  years  of  the  truth  of  the  Copernican  system, 
while  he  was  pained  to  find  it  so  generally  rejected  both  by  the- 
ologians and  naturalists ;  by  the  former  on  the  authority  of  the 
church  fathers,  and  by  the  latter  of  Aristotle  and  Ptolemy.  Yet  he 
adds  in  a  remark,  most  significant  of  his  own  character  as  of  that 
of  the  times :  "  I  have  abundant  proof  of  the  truth  of  the  new 
astronomical  views,  yet  I  do  not  venture  to  publish  it,  through 
fear  of  sharing  the  fate  of  our  master  Copernicus,  who,  great  as  is 
his  fame  with  a  few,  is  yet  to  the  many  (for  thus  great  is  the  num- 
ber of  fools)  only  an  object  of  ridicule  and  scorn."  At  this  time 
he  seems  to  have  had  no  apprehensions  of  the  charge  of  heresy. 
Indeed,  as  Copernicus'  work  had  been  dedicated,  by  permission, 
to  Pope  Paul  III.,  and  now  for  more  than  fifty  years  had  gone 
unchallenged  by  the  church  censorship,  he  might  well  believe  that 
he  could  confess  himself  as  a  convert  to  its  doctrines,  without 
being  stigmatized  as  an  heretic.  Still,  with  whatsoever  reserve 
and  caution  he  might  proceed,  the  time  was  surely  approaching 
when  the  opposition  was  to  come,  not  directly  from  philosophy 
and  from  theology,  but  from  the  tribunals  of  church  authority, 
and  to  nothing  was  the  crisis  so  much  owing  at  last  as  to  his  well- 
earned  success  in  scientific  investigation,  and  to  the  force  of  the 
truth  which  he  gained  and  made  known  to  the  world.  It  was  in 
1610  that  the  astronomer  secured  for  himself  in  the  telescope, 
which  he  made,  the  instrument  of  his  great  discoveries.  Though 
not,  as  some  have  maintained,  the  inventor  of  the  telescope,  yet  he 
vastly  improved  it  by  his  inventions,  and  certainly  was  the  first  to 
apply  it  to  the  observation  of  the  heavens.  Marvelous,  indeed, 
were  the  sights  that  through  that,  at  best,  very  rude  instrument 
broke  from  the  heavens  upon  Galileo's  astonished  eyes,  and  mar- 
velous the  knowledge  it  conveyed  to  the  world  through  the 


GALILEO   AND   THE   INQUISITION.  433 

astronomer's  bulletin  of  discovery,  the  so-called  "Sidereal  Mes- 
senger." The  hitherto  so  flat  moon  was  seen  to  rejoice  in  moun- 
tains even  as  the  aristocratic  earth  herself ;  the  Milky  Way  was 
all  at  once  studded  with  innumerable  stars  ;  the  Pleiades,  those 
far-famed  daughters  of  Atlas,  instead  of  being  only  seven  in  num- 
ber, multiplied  to  a  bright  clustering  family  of  thirty-six,  and  the 
giant  Orion,  instead  of  disclosing  only  seven  stars,  was  covered 
with  them  all  over  his  heroic  figure  to  the  number  of  more  than 
five  hundred ;  the  planets  showed  themselves  as  round  disks,  and 
the  fixed  stars,  though  still  only  bright  points,  were  yet  no  longer 
fixed  by  the  dictum  of  the  great  Stagirite,  but  moving,  changing 
ever  with  the  ever-moving,  ever-changing  firmament  itself.  Yet 
more  direct  in  their  proof  of  the  truth  of  the  Copernican  doctrine 
were  the  discoveries  of  the  satellites  of  Jupiter,  the  ring  of  Saturn, 
and  the  spots  on  the  Sun.  But  Galileo  contented  himself  with 
simply  publishing  the  facts,  without  bringing  them  into  logical 
relation  to  the  Copernican  system,  leaving  all  such  inferences  to 
his  readers.  While  the  common  people  greeted  with  wondering 
admiration  the  man  who  had  thus  revealed  to  them  a  new  heaven, 
these  revelations  were  met  by  the  learned  with  incredulity  or  with 
sneers  of  contempt  or  with  the  bitter  hate  of  envious  jealousy. 
Some  of  the  hottest  Aristotelians  even  maintained  that  the  astrono- 
mer's telescope  was  purposely  fashioned  in  such  cunning  way  that 
it  showed  things  which  had  no  real  existence,  and  all  in  vain  was 
it  that  Galileo,  in  reply,  offered  a  reward  of  ten  thousand  scudi  to 
anybody  who  would  construct  so  cunning  an  instrument  as  that ! 
Others  stubbornly  refused  to  look  through  the  telescope,  arguing 
that  it  was  simply  impossible  for  any  instrument  to  discover  phe- 
nomena in  the  heavens  of  which  there  was  not  a  word  in  all  the 
books  of  Aristotle !  It  was  of  one  of  these  a  priori  philosophers, 
Julius  Libri,  who  spurned  all  Galileo's  discoveries  as  "  absurdities," 
and  who  died  in  this  same  year  (1610),  and  died  without  the  sight, 
that  the  astronomer  wittily  said :  "  That  he  hoped  that  Signore 
Libri,  who  was  never  willing  to  see  these  absurdities  from  the 
earth,  had  vouchsafed  a  passing  look  at  them  on  his  way  to 
heaven." 

In  marked  contrast  to  all  these  was  the  true-minded  and  true- 
hearted  Kepler,  who  at  once  openly  maintained  the  truth  of  Gali- 
leo's observations,  and  published  them  himself  as  fast  as  they 
were  made  known,  and  declared  that  Galileo  "  had  given  in  them 
the  clearest  proof  of  the  divinity  of  his  genius."  In  a  letter  of 


434  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

this  period  to  Kepler,  Galileo  thus  writes:  You  are  well-nigh 
the  only  one  who  lias  given  full  credit  to  my  statements,  and  that 
from  your  own  independent  way  of  thinking.  But  let  us  not 
care  for  the  revilings  of  the  great  crowd,  for  against  Jupiter  once 
fought  even  giants,  to  say  nothing  of  the  pygmies  —  and  all  in 
vain.  Jupiter  still  stands  in  the  heavens,  let  these  doggish  peo- 
ple bay  and  bark  at  him  as  they  will.  What  say  you  to  the  first 
philosophers  of  our  Pisa  Faculty,  who,  with  a  stupid  stubborn- 
ness, will  not  look  at  planets  or  the  moon,  nor  even  at  my  tele- 
scope itself?  Verily,  they  close  their  eyes  against  the  light  of 
truth.  This  kind  of  people  think  philosophy  to  be  a  book,  just 
like  the  Odyssey  or  the  ^Eneid ;  and  they  must  needs  seek  for 
truth  not  in  the  world  of  space,  not  in  nature  but  (to  use  their 
own  words)  in  the  comparison  of  texts !  What  is  to  be  done  ? 
Shall  we  join  Democritus  or  Herodotus  ?  Democritus,  I  think,  my 
good  Kepler,  and  let  us  only  laugh  over  all  this  distinguished 
dullness."  It  was  unfortunate  for  Galileo  that  at  this  period  he 
retired  from  the  service  of  the  Venetian  republic,  which  would 
hardly  have  refused  him  protection  against  the  attacks  of  church 
authority,  and  accepted  a  call  which  he  received  from  his  former 
pupil,  Cosmo  II.,  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany.  In  the  autumn  of 
1610  he  entered  upon  his  duties  as  First  Professor  of  Mathe- 
matics at  the  University  of  Pisa,  with  the  added  title  of  First 
Philosopher  to  His  Ducal  Highness,  and  with  the  stipulation, 
made  by  the  Grand  Duke,  that  he  should  not  be  under  obligation 
to  reside  at  Pisa,  or  to  deliver  academic  lectures ;  he  might  devote 
himself,  if  he  chose,  exclusively  to  his  scientific  studies  and  writ- 
ings. But  great  as  were  these  advantages,  which  this  position 
offered  him,  it  was  a  bad  exchange  which  he  made,  when  he  left 
the  free  soil  of  the  republic,  and  trusted  his  fortunes  to  the  pro- 
tection of  a  prince,  who,  though  his  sincere  friend,  was  neverthe- 
less young  and  of  an  inconstant  nature,  and  was  under  the  com- 
plete dominion  of  Rome.  In  Venetian  Padua  there  was  entire 
and  actual  freedom  in  teaching,  but  in  Tuscany  it  was  only  nomi- 
nal ;  in  the  former,  science  was  secure  from  the  intrigue  and  shuf- 
fling tricks  of  the  Jesuits,  in  the  latter,  the  Jesuits  were  at  home, 
and  their  mighty  influence  lay  heavy  upon  all  that  touched  their 
interests,  and  most  of  all  upon  scientific  inquiry.  Yet,  for  some 
time  after  his  arrival  in  Tuscany,  his  enemies  found  it  not  easy 
to  set  in  movement  against  him  the  ecclesiastical  authorities ; 
and  only  from  a  distance  and  at  intervals  was  heard  the  low 


GALILEO   AND   THE   INQUISITION.  435 

rumbling  of  the  storm  which  by  and  by  was  to  break  upon 
him.  In  1611,  on  the  visit  which  he  made  to  Rome  by  the  per- 
mission and  at  the  expense  of  his  prince,  he  was  received  with 
the  distinctions  of  a  veritable  triumph.  Pope  Paul  V.  granted 
him  a  lengthened  audience,  and  gave  him  most  gracious  assurance 
of  his  unchangeable  favor.  Cardinals  and  prelates  and  scholars 
all  vied  with  one  another  in  doing  him  honor.  The  Eternal  City 
presented  the  strange  spectacle  of  courtiers  and  scholars  and  even 
Aristotelian  philosophers  and  bigoted  old  school  theologians  gaz- 
ing through  the  telescope  upon  the  much  talked  of  phenomena  of 
the  new  heavens,  their  doubts  vanishing  —  if  only  they  would  let 
them  —  in  the  overwhelming  light  of  ocular  evidence.  And  most 
significant  and  important  of  all  was  the  favorable  official  opinion 
given  in  by  four  eminent  men  of  science,  appointed  to  the  ser- 
vice by  Cardinal  Bellarmin,  who  testified,  as  eye-witnesses,  to  the 
correctness  of  the  astronomical  facts  which  had  been  discovered 
and  published  by  Galileo.  But  the  Holy  Inquisition,  ever  on  the 
watch  against  heresy,  had  their  suspicious  eyes  upon  Galileo, 
while  all  else  in  Rome  were  paying  him  their  homage  of  willing 
admiration.  In  the  "  Records  of  the  Inquisition,"  published  in 
1870  by  Gherardi,  appears  the  following  curious  little  entry, 
bearing  date  of  May  17,  1611,  the  very  time  of  the  culmination  of 
Galileo's  successes  in  Rome  :  "  Let  it  be  looked  into,  whether  in 
the  trial  of  Dr.  Caesar  Cremonini,  Galileo  Galilei,  the  Professor 
of  Philosophy  and  Mathematics,  is  not  named"  This  is  the^rs^ 
time  in  which  the  name  of  Galileo  finds  place  in  the  Inquisition 
records.  The  Holy  Office  was  thus  in  search  of  some  clue  of 
evidence  against  this  innovator,  with  whose  praises  the  air  of 
Rome  was  now  so  full.  How  different  was  a  sentence  written  in 
the  same  month  by  Cardinal  del  Monte  to  Cosmo  II. :  "  If  we 
were  living  in  the  days  of  the  old  Roman  republic,  I  verily  be- 
lieve that  a  column  would  have  been  erected  8n  the  Capitol  in 
honor  of  the  surpassing  worth  of  Galileo."  But  the  Inquisition 
was  under  the  influence  of  the  ultra-conservatism  of  the  time. 
The  Aristotelians  and  their  cousins-german,  the  old  school  theolo- 
gians, looked  with  horror  upon  this  growing  success  of  a  system 
which,  in  their  eyes,  was  undermining  the  venerable  foundations, 
not  only  of  physics  and  mathematics,  but  of  philosophy  and  reli* 
gion.  Like  the  silversmiths  of  Ephesus,  in  Paul's  reforming  days, 
they  felt  that  not  only  their  craft  was  in  danger,  but  also  the  mag- 
nificent temples  of  the  deities  they  worshiped  were  like  to  be  de- 


436  GALILEO  AND    THE  INQUISITION. 

spised,  and  so  they  cried  out,  Great  is  Aristotle,  great  is  Theology, 
the  sovereign  empress  of  all  the  sciences  !  The  writer  who  was 
the  first  to  bring  over  the  discussion,  hitherto  purely  scientific, 
into  the  region  of  theology,  was  a  Florentine  monk  by  the  name 
of  Francisco  Sitio,  who,  in  a  book  long  since  forgotten,  undertook 
—  as  appears  from  his  title-page  —  to  prove,  on  plain  evidence  of 
Holy  Writ,  "  the  emptiness  of  the  rumor  started  by  the  '  Sidereal 
Messenger,'  about  four  (Jupiter)  planets  recently  seen  by  the 
mathematician  Galileo  Galilei  through  some  kind  of  an  optical 
instrument  "  ("  cujusdam  perspicilli  ")  !  But  this  worthy  monk 
had  coadjutors  superior  to  himself  in  learning  and  position,  who 
were  at  work,  however,  in  a  less  public  way.  In  Florence,  in  the 
palace  of  the  Archbishop  Marzimedici,  a  company  of  theologians 
was  wont  to  assemble  "  in  honor  of  God  and  imperiled  religion," 
to  take  counsel  in  secret,  not  whether  the  discoveries  of  Galileo 
rested  on  fact  or  no,  but  how  this  troublesome  new  teacher  and  his 
revolutionary  system  could  best  be  destroyed.  But  in  the  higher 
ecclesiastical  circles  in  Rome  the  astronomer  had  not  as  yet  lost 
favor.  Even  in  1613,  when,  in  a  controversial  work  against  the 
Jesuit  Scheiner  on  the  spots  upon  the  sun,  he  for  the  first  time  de- 
clared himself  openly  for  the  Copernican  system,  we  find  Cardinal 
Barberini,  afterwards  Pope  Urban  VIII.,  and  Cardinal  Borromeo 
thanking  him  for  sending  them  his  work,  and  expressing  their  ad- 
miration of  the  results  of  his  studies.  It  was  the  accident  of  a  con- 
versation at  the  grand  ducal  table,  where  were  present  several  pro- 
fessors of  the  University  of  Pisa,  which  led  the  way  to  the  conflict 
with  ecclesiastical  power.  The  Grand  Duchess  Dowager  Chris- 
tine had  put  the  question  to  Boscaglia,  the  Pisa  Professor  of  Nat- 
ural Philosophy,  whether  the  satellites  of  Jupiter  were  really  to 
be  seen  in  the  heavens,  and  the  professor  had  answered,  though 
very  reluctantly,  in  the  affirmative.  Professor  Castelli,  a  good 
friend  of  Galileo,*was  present,  and  he  at  once  made  the  best  of 
the  opportunity  and  discoursed  to  the  company  most  earnestly 
upon  the  great  importance  of  Galileo's  discoveries.  Boscaglia, 
who,  being  a  peripatetic  of  the  first  water,  could  not  suppress  his 
vexation  at  the  turn  the  conversation  was  taking,  kept  up  a  commu- 
nication in  whispers  with  the  dowager  duchess,  telling  her  that 
though  many  of  Galileo's  views  were  without  doubt  true,  yet  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  double  motion  of  the  earth  seemed  to  him  in- 
credible, indeed  impossible,  since  it  was  quite  contrary  to  Scripture. 
So  the  duchess  at  once  began  to  attack  the  Copernican  system  on 


GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION.  437 

Bible  grounds.  Castelli  at  first  objected  to  draw  the  Bible  into 
a  scientific  discussion,  but  as  his  objections  were  of  no  avail,  he 
took  at  once  a  theological  position,  and  from  it  defended  the  new 
views  with  such  force  of  conviction,  that  he  brought  over  to  his 
side  nearly  the  whole  company,  including  the  grand  duke  and 
his  wife.  The  duchess'  mother,  however,  who  was  a  woman  of 
narrow  mind,  held  out  to  the  last,  and  Boscaglia  himself  main- 
tained a  neutral  silence.  The  information  of  this  occurrence, 
which  was  immediately  given  by  Castelli  to  his  friend,  drew  from 
Galileo  that  celebrated  letter,  in  which  he  first  expressed  those 
theological  opinions  which  rendered  him  obnoxious  to  church  cen- 
sure, and  to  the  subsequent  indictment  and  trial  for  heresy. 

After  protesting  against  the  necessity  to  which  he  is  brought, 
of  involving  the  Bible  in  a  purely  scientific  discussion,  he  proceeds 
to  give  his  views  of  the  relations  of  the  Bible  to  scientific  inquiry. 
He  says  that,  as  a  good  Catholic,  he  fully  acknowledges  that  the 
Bible  cannot  teach  what  is  false  or  erroneous,  but  that  he  can  by 
no  means  acknowledge  the  same  of  all  the  interpreters  of  the 
Bible.  These  betray  themselves  into  contradictions,  and  even 
heresies  and  blasphemies,  when  they  interpret  Scripture  according 
to  the  letter.  Thus  they  would  ascribe  to  God  hands  and  feet 
and  ears,  and  also  human  feelings,  as  wrath  and  hate  and  repent- 
ance, and  also  ignorance  of  the  future.  Further,  he  teaches  that 
both  Scripture  and  nature  proceed  from  the  Divine  Word;  but  for 
Scripture  it  was  necessary  that,  in  accommodation  to  the  common 
mind,  it  should  utter  much  that  might  seem  contrary  to  truth ; 
but  that  nature,  on  the  other  hand,  was  inexorable  and  unchange- 
able, and  quite  unconcerned  whether  her  hidden  grounds  and 
agencies  were  comprehensible  by  men  or  not.  Now  as  two  truths 
cannot  contradict  each  other,  it  is  the  business  of  wise  interpreters 
of  the  Bible  to  interpret  its  statements  in  harmony  with  those 
necessary  conclusions  touching  nature  which  are  made  certain  by 
ocular  demonstration,  or  by  sure  proof.  Then,  as  to  the  mission 
of  the  Bible,  he  says,  "  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  Bible  is 
intended  to  teach  truths  which  are  necessary  to  salvation,  and 
which  get  their  sanction,  not  from  science,  nor  from  any  other 
source  than  their  revelation  through  the  Holy  Ghost.  But  that 
the  same  God  who  has  furnished  us  with  senses,  understanding, 
and  reason  will  not  allow  us  to  use  them,  but  will  bring  us  by 
some  other  way  to  a  knowledge  of  those  sciences  which  we  can  get 
by  ourselves,  by  the  use  of  those  capacities  —  this,  I  think,  I  am 


438  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

under  no  obligation  to  believe ;  least  of  all  in  respect  to  those  sci- 
ences of  which  we  have  in  Scripture  quite  inconsiderable  frag- 
ments, as,  for  instance,  astronomy,  to  which  the  Bible  makes  such 
slight  contributions  that  it  does  not  even  mention  all  the  planets." 
The  wily  enemies  of  Galileo  knew  how  to  abuse  this  ingenuous 
confession  of  a  wise  and  good  man  to  his  own  injury.  They 
noisily  proclaimed  that  his  assertion  that  Holy  Scripture  has  no 
place  in  scientific  discussion  was  an  assaiilt  upon  its  universal 
authority.  The  respectable  Bishop  of  Fiesole,  Gherardini,  to  whom 
the  existence  of  Copernicus  was  apparently  wholly  unknown,  fell 
into  such  a  rage  over  the  system  defended  by  Galileo,  that  he  in- 
dulged in  indecorous  abuse  of  the  astronomer,  and  threatened  to 
represent  the  whole  affair  to  the  grand  duke.  But  some  of  the 
bishop's  cooler  friends  managed  to  quiet  him  with  the  information 
that  the  author  of  the  system  was  not  a  living  Tuscan,  but  only  a 
German,  who  had  been  dead  seventy  years,  and  that  when  he  was 
alive  and  published  his  book,  he  had  dedicated  it  to  Pope  Paul  III., 
and  that  His  Holiness  had  accepted  it  in  the  most  gracious  man- 
ner. But  the  first  open  and  public  assault  upon  Galileo  and  his 
system  came  from  the  pulpit  on  the  fourth  Sunday  in  Advent,  in 
1614,  in  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  Novella,  in  Florence,  in  the 
person  of  the  Dominican  monk  Caccini.  With  a  wit  somewhat 
profane  in  the  pulpit,  he  opened  upon  Galileo  with  the  text  from 
the  first  chapter  of  the  Acts, "  Viri  Galilcei,  quid  statis  aspicientes 
in  GadumV  But  this  pun  of  the  pious  Peter  Caccini  was  the  best 
thing  in  his  whole  performance.  All  the  rest  was  simply  shocking, 
alike  to  reason  and  religion.  He  went  on  to  teach  that  the  doc- 
trine taught  by  Galileo,  of  the  revolution  of  the  earth  round  the 
sun,  was  inconsistent  with  the  Catholic  faith,  as  it  was  in  flat  con- 
tradiction with  Holy  Scripture,  the  sense  of  which,  as  given  by  all 
the  church  fathers,  taught  just  the  opposite  doctrine.  And  inas- 
much as  nobody  was  allowed  to  deviate  from  the  authority  of  the 
aforesaid  fathers,  therefore  this  Galilean  doctrine  was  heretical. 
The  preacher  closed  with  an  invective  against  all  mathematicians, 
whose  science  he  denounced  as  an  invention  of  the  devil,  and  with 
the  pious  wish,  that  the  whole  tribe,  as  all  heresies  proceeded 
from  them,  might  be  expelled  from  all  Christian  states !  Another 
Dominican  monk,  by  name  Lorini,  secured  a  copy  of  the  letter 
to  Castelli,  and  forwarded  it,  accompanied  with  a  denunciatory 
letter,  to  Cardinal  Mellini,  the  President  of  the  Holy  Congrega- 
tion of  the  Index.  Never  did  wily  priest  weave  together  sophistry 


GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION.  439 

and  slander  with  more  perverse  ingenuity  than  Padre  Lorini  in 
this  letter  of  denunciation.  After  enumerating  the  scientific  sins 
of  Galileo,  and  deprecating  their  destructive  influence  upon  the 
whole  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  upon  the  authority  of  the  fathers, 
and  the  holy  Catholic  faith,  he  delivers  himself  of  a  precious  bit 
of  nai' ve  hypocrisy,  as  follows :  "  For  myself,  while  I  hold  all  these 
Galileans  to  be  orderly  men,  to  be  sure,  and  good  Christians, 
though  a  little  overwise  and  obstinate,  I  beg  to  assure  you,  that 
in  all  this,  my  proceeding,  I  am  moved  only  by  zeal  for  the  holy 
cause"  After  this  assurance,  he  begs  that  his  letter  may  be  con- 
sidered confidential,  only  a  friendly  communication  from  a  servant 
of  the  church,  and  not  a  judicial  document.  As  a  consequence  of 
Lorini's  letter,  the  Holy  Office  at  once  instituted  a  secret  investiga- 
tion of  the  charges  against  Galileo.  Various  attempts  were  made, 
but  in  vain,  to  get  possession  of  the  original  of  Galileo's  commu- 
nication to  Castelli.  The  monk  Caccini  was  summoned  as  a  wit- 
ness, but  his  testimony  was  loaded  with  statements  so  manifestly 
untrue  that  the  Inquisition  gave  up  for  the  present  all  further  in- 
vestigation. But,  on  account  of  the  excitement  incident  to  these 
recent  attacks,  it  seemed  to  Galileo  and  his  friends  that  he  ought 
now  to  make  a  public  vindication  of  his  opinions.  Hence  arose 
the  apologetic  tract  which  he  published  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to 
the  Grand  Duchess  Christine.  As  this  tract  defines  more  fully 
than  the  letter  to  Castelli  the  astronomer's  position  both  as  a  man 
of  science  and  a  Catholic  Christian,  and  also  contains  views  on  the 
relations  of  science  and  religion,  which  are  again  emphasized  in 
our  own  times,  it  seems  worth  while  to  give  a  brief  sketch  of  its 
contents.  He  opens  by  mentioning  it  as  his  misfortune  that  by 
his  astronomical  discoveries  he  has  aroused  against  him  many  phi- 
losophers of  the  reigning  school,  as  if  he  had  with  his  own  hand 
set  up  those  phenomena  in  the  firmament,  to  bring  general  disor- 
der into  nature  and  science.  These  antagonists,  however,  instead 
of  meeting  him,  as  in  duty  bound,  with  counter  observations  and 
facts,  had  chosen  to  shield  themselves  and  their  unsupported  dicta 
by  the  pretext  of  religion  and  Holy  Scripture. 

Now  as  to  personal  charges  of  heresy,  he  begs  to  say  that  Coper- 
nicus, his  master,  was  not  only  a  good  Catholic,  but  also  a  priest 
of  the  church,  who  stood  in  high  favor  with  the  Koman  Curia  for 
his  piety  as  well  as  his  learning,  and  that  his  great  work  was  first 
published  under  the  gracious  sanction  of  the  then  Pope,  Paul  III., 
and  that  until  lately  its  orthodoxy  had  never  been  called  in  ques- 


440  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

tion.  For  himself  it  had  been  the  farthest  possible  from  his  in- 
tention to  say  or  teach  aught  contrary  to  the  Bible,  and  that  if  on 
account  of  his  not  being  learned  in  Scripture  he  had  been  guilty 
of  any  errors  in  religion,  he  was  ready  at  once  to  abandon  them, 
so  soon  as  they  were  proved  to  be  errors.  He  then  unfolds,  with 
more  fullness  than  in  his  letter  to  Castelli,  the  relation  of  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible  to  scientific  truth,  and  confirms  them  by  an 
appeal  to  earlier  Catholic  writers  whose  orthodoxy  was  never  ques- 
tioned. Especially,  he  quotes  the  memorable  words  of  Cardinal 
Baronius :  "  The  Holy  Ghost  designed  in  the  Bible  to  teach  men 
how  to  go  to  heaven,  not  how  the  heavens  go."  This  utterance 
he  backs  by  many  passages  quoted  from  St.  Augustine.  He  then 
puts  in  an  exception  to  the  view  at  that  time  so  current,  that  The- 
ology, as  the  queen  of  all  the  sciences,  may  in  nowise  demean 
herself  so  as  to  adjust  her  doctrines  to  the  teachings  of  the  other 
inferior  sciences,  but  that  all  these,  on  the  contrary,  must  be  ever 
subject  to  her  sovereign  authority,  and  shape  their  conclusions  to 
her  traditions  and  decrees.  He  declares  himself  to  be  somewhat 
in  doubt,  exactly  on  what  grounds  sacred  Theology  has  been  in- 
vested with  this  title  and  rank  of  sovereign  queen.  It  may  be, 
perhaps,  first,  because  all  which  is  taught  by  the  other  sciences  is 
contained  and  interpreted  by  Theology,  only  in  a  better  way  and 
from  higher  knowledge,  or,  secondly,  because  the  subject  which 
busies  Theology  is  far  superior  in  worth  and  importance  to  all  the 
subjects  of  which  the  other  sciences  treat.  Now  if  Theology  is  a 
queen  in  the  first  sense,  then,  certainly,  the  claim  to  the  title  is  not 
valid,  for  nobody  can  maintain  that  geometry  and  astronomy  and 
music  and  medicine  are  more  fully  and  better  taught  in  Scripture 
than  in  the  books  of  Archimedes  and  Ptolemy  and  Galen.  It 
would  seem,  then,  that  Theology  must  rest  her  sovereign  claims  on 
the  second  ground.  On  this  head  the  writer  utters  this  pithy  sen- 
tence :  "  If  now  Theology,  occupied  only  with  the  supreme,  divine 
problems,  keeps  upon  the  queenly  throne  which  belongs  to  her 
supreme  rank,  without  descending  to  the  lower  sciences,  which 
have  not  to  do  with  the  mysteries  of  salvation,  then  the  professors 
of  theology  ought  not  to  presume  upon  authority  to  issue  decrees 
and  statutes  in  other  sciences,  which  they  have  never,  ex  professo, 
pursued  and  studied.  For  this  were  as  if  an  absolute  prince,  who 
can  order  at  will  and  exact  obedience,  without  being  a  physician 
or  an  architect  should  wish  that  the  sick  should  be  healed,  or 
buildings  erected  according  to  his  direction,  at  the  risk  of  death 


GALILEO   AND   THE  INQUISITION.  441 

to  the  patients,  and  destruction  to  the  buildings."  The  writer  then 
applies  the  principles  he  has  laid  down  to  the  Copernician  system. 
According  to  the  opinion  of  many,  he  says,  this  system  is  to  be 
rejected  because  it  goes  counter  to  the  letter  of  Scripture,  and  on 
the  other  hand,  that  the  immobility  of  the  earth  and  the  mobility 
of  the  sun  must  be  accepted  de  fide.  Here  he  makes  a  sharp  dis- 
tinction, which  he  contends  must  also  be  observed,  between  mere 
hypotheses  and  ascertained  facts.  In  regard  to  the  former,  as, 
for  example,  whether  the  stars  are  inhabited  or  not,  one  might,  to 
be  sure,  fall  in  with  the  literal  sense  of  Scripture.  But  if,  on  the 
contrary,  the  statement  of  facts  in  nature,  which  have  been  reached 
by  sure  observation  and  proof,  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  literal 
sense  of  Scripture,  then  these  physical  facts  must  lead  the  inter- 
preter to  the  study  and  understanding  of  the  true  sense,  which 
must  certainly  be  in  harmony  with  the  proved  results  of  science, 
inasmuch  as  two  truths  can  never  contradict  each  other.  One 
other  passage  which  bore  hard  upon  him  in  his  subsequent  trial  I 
will  quote.  After  declaring  that  he  is  willing  to  abide  by  the  offi- 
cial opinion  of  fair  and  wise  and  well-instructed  theologians,  he 
thus  addresses  his  enemies :  "  See  to  it  that  you  refute  the  proofs 
for  the  Copernican  system,  and  leave  the  question  of  its  heresy  to 
whom  its  settlement  belongs ;  but  do  not  imagine  that  you  will  get 
from  those  thoughtful  and  sagacious  church  authorities,  and  from 
the  absolute  wisdom  of  Him  who  is  infallible,  the  hasty  decisions 
to  which  you  would  wrest  yourselves  by  your  own  personal  inter- 
ests and  passions.  For  without  doubt  in  reference  to  matters 
which  are  not  exactly  de  fide,  His  Holiness  the  Pope  has  uncondi- 
tioned power  of  approbation  or  condemnation ;  but  it  is  not  in  the 
power  of  any  human  being  to  make  a  thing  true  or  to  make  it 
false,  or  to  make  it  any  otherwise  than  it  is,  de  facto,  by  its  own 
nature."  A  tract  like  this,  thrown  suddenly  by  an  astronomer 
into  the  atmosphere  of  Rome  in  the  year  1615,  brought  with  it  an 
air  quite  too  fresh  and  free  for  the  constitutional  habits  of  the  Ro- 
man church ;  and  the  thought  it  uttered  was  of  such  uncanonical 
sort,  it  was  so  very  human,  arid  yet  so  real  and  so  true,  that  it 
gave  mortal  offense  to  all  genuine  orthodoxy,  both  in  science  and 
in  religion.  Galileo  soon  learned  that  his  enemies  were  working 
against  him  more  busily  and  bitterly  than  before,  and  that  a  move- 
ment was  on  foot  to  bring  him  under  ecclesiastical  censure,  and  to 
put  a  church  injunction  on  all  Copernican  teaching.  With  the 
purpose  of  defending  himself  and  his  views  against  this  movement, 


442  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

he  made  a  journey  to  Rome  in  December,  1615.  The  statement, 
often  made,  that  he  went  to  Rome  at  this  time  in  obedience  to  a 
papal  summons  is  disproved  by  the  records  of  the  manuscript  now 
published.  The  testimony  there  recorded  shows  beyond  contro- 
versy that  he  went  of  his  own  free  will,  and  for  the  purpose  just 
mentioned.  The  event  proved  that  he  arrived  in  Rome  not  a  mo- 
ment too  early  for  his  purpose.  In  a  letter  written  a  week  after 
his  arrival  he  writes  thus :  "  I  see  every  day  how  well  it  was  that 
I  came  here  at  this  time,  for  I  have  discovered  so  many  snares  laid 
for  me  that  at  a  later  period  my  personal  safety  might  have  been 
impossible."  So  far,  however,  had  the  proceedings  already  gone, 
that,  while  he  had  no  fears  for  himself,  he  found  it  impossible  to 
get  any  favorable  hearing  in  defense  of  his  astronomical  views. 
His  efforts,  indeed,  only  hastened  the  hitherto  lingering  action  of 
the  church  authorities. 

By  a  decree  of  the  19th  of  February,  1616,  the  Inquisition 
charged  its  consulting  theologians  to  prepare  and  hand  in  an  offi- 
cial opinion  touching  the  two  following  propositions,  as  contained 
in  Galileo's  writings :  — 

1.  The  sun  is  the  centre  of  the  world,  and  consequently  without 
motion. 

2.  The  earth  is  not  the  centre  of  the  world  and  not  stationary, 
but  moves  with  a  diurnal  motion.    On  the  24th  of  February  the 
theologians  gave  in  their  opinion  as  follows  :  — 

The  first  proposition  they  declared  to  be  foolish  and  absurd  in 
philosophy  and  formally  heretical,  as  being  contrary  to  Scripture 
according  to  the  proper  sense  of  many  passages,  and  also  accord- 
ing to  the  general  interpretation  of  the  holy  fathers  and  learned 
theologians  of  the  church.  The  second  proposition  they  declared 
to  be  subject  to  the  same  censure  in  philosophy,  and  in  respect  to 
theological  truth  to  be  at  the  least  erroneous  in  faith.  At  a  ses- 
sion of  the  Inquisition  held  on  the  next  day,  the  25th  of  February, 
Cardinal  Mellini  announced  that  in  consequence  of  this  official 
opinion,  Cardinal  Bellarmin  had  been  instructed  by  the  Pope  to 
summon  Galileo  and  admonish  him  to  give  up  (deserere)  the 
opinion  contained  in  the  propositions  submitted  to  the  theologi- 
cal commission  ;  in  the  event  of  his  refusal  to  obey,  the  Commis- 
sary-General of  the  Holy  Office  was  instructed  to  deliver  him  the 
order,  in  presence  of  a  notary  and  witnesses,  that  he  abstain 
from  teaching  or  defending  the  aforesaid  doctrine  and  opinion,  or 
from  treating  of  it ;  in  case  of  his  non-acquiescence  he  was  to  be 


GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION.  443 

imprisoned.  We  find  it  set  down  in  the  trial  records  that  on  the 
following  3d  of  March  Cardinal  Bellarmin  informed  the  Inqui- 
sition that  he  had  duly  given  Galileo  the  admonition,  and  that 
he  had  acquiesced  in  the  same,  also  that  on  the  26th  May  the 
same  cardinal  had  given  Galileo,  at  his  request,  his  written  cer-  " 
tificate  over  his  own  signature,  to  this  effect :  that  formal  abjura- 
tion of  his  opinions  had  not  been  required  of  him  or  any  penalty 
inflicted  upon  him,  but  only  that  he  had  been  informed  of  the 
declaration  made  by  our  Lord  (the  Pope)  (Jatto  da  Nostro  Sig- 
nore),  and  published  by  the  Holy  Congregation  of  the  Index,  that 
the  Copernican  view  of  the  immobility  of  the  sun  and  the  mobility 
of  the  earth  is  contrary  to  Scripture,  and  so  may  not  be  defended 
or  held.  According  to  a  minute  bearing  date  26th  of  February, 
and  found  or  declared  to  be  found  in  the  trial  records,  but  quite 
inconsistent  with  all  the  other  documents  above  mentioned,  and  yet 
used  as  chief  evidence  against  Galileo  in  the  second  trial,  Galileo 
had  received  the  order  from  the  Commissary-General,  in  presence 
of  notary  and  witnesses,  to  give  up  the  obnoxious  Copernican 
opinion,  and  neither  to  hold  it  in  any  way  whatsoever  (jquovis 
modo},  nor  to  teach  or  defend  it  by  writing  or  word  of  mouth ; 
and  that  he  had  acquiesced  and  promised  to  obey  this  order.  The 
examination  of  this  minute  belongs,  however,  to  a  later  stage  of 
the  Inquisition  proceedings.  To  a  complete  view  of  the  authentic 
acts  of  this  period  it  remains  to  be  added,  that  on  the  5th  of  March 
a  decree  was  issued  by  the  Holy  Congregation  of  the  Index,  by 
which  the  great  work  of  Copernicus  on  the  "  Revolutions  of  the 
Heavenly  Bodies,"  and  all  other  books  in  which  the  false  and 
unscriptural  doctrine  of  the  mobility  of  the  earth  and  the  immo- 
bility of  the  sun  was  taught,  were  prohibited  from  publication, 
until  the  errors  in  them  were  duly  corrected.  Thus  had  the  Ro- 
man court  defined  its  position  on  the  astronomical  science  of  the 
century.  The  motion  of  the  earth  around  the  sun  was  pronounced 
by  it  to  be  an  unscriptural  doctrine  and  a  formal  heresy ;  it  might 
not  be  defended  or  held  by  any  Catholic  Christian.  It  was  still 
perhaps  possible  for  a  believer  in  the  Copernican  system  to  evade 
in  some  cunning  way  the  letter  of  the  interdict,  so  to  hide  his 
opinions,  or  to  put  them  forward  in  hypothetical  form,  as  not  to 
be  guilty  of  an  overt  act  of  its  violation ;  but  even  then  he  was 
always  at  the  mercy  of  power,  he  had  ever  over  his  head  the  sword 
of  church  censure  hanging  by  the  slightest  thread.  Most  of  all 
was  it  so  with  Galileo,  the  chief  sufferer  by  these  prohibitory  pro- 


444  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

ceeclings.  His  life  as  a  thinker  and  man  of  science  was  for  a 
time  arrested  at  its  sources,  and  all  freedom  and  elasticity  of  step 
and  movement  was  gone.  Whatever  action  now  there  was,  was 
only  abnormal  and  morbid.  How  painfully  does  this  appear  in  a 
letter  which  he  wrote  soon  after,  accompanying  the  dedication  of 
a  book  which  he  had  written  on  the  subject  of  "  The  Tides,"  to 
Leopold,  the  Archduke  of  Austria.  He  had  written  the  book  at 
the  request  of  Cardinal  Orsini,  during  his  last  visit  to  Rome,  and 
in  it  had  incorporated  proofs  of  the  truth  of  the  Copernican  views. 
But  now  that  the  interdict  was  on  such  a  book,  he  must  needs  in 
some  way  bring  about  obedience  to  it  as  a  faithful  servant  of  the 
church.  "  Because,"  he  writes,  "  because  it  becomes  me  to  obey 
the  decisions  of  my  superiors,  as  they  are  guided  by  a  higher  intelli- 
gence, to  which  my  own  humbler  mind  does  not  of  itself  attain, 
therefore  I  look  upon  this  book  which  I  present  to  you,  inasmuch 
as  it  goes  to  prove  the  twofold  motion  of  the  earth,  simply  as  a  fic- 
tion, or  rather  as  a  dream,  and  pray  your  Highness  to  receive  it  as 
such.  But  even  as  poets  sometimes  value  one  or  another  of  their 
fancies,  so  I  in  like  manner  set  some  store  by  this  fancy  of  mine. 
I  had  intended  to  discuss  this  subject  more  fully,  and  to  add  other 
proofs.  But  a  voice  from  heaven  has  awakened  me  and  dissolved 
in  mist  all  my  perplexed  phantasms"  What  a  humiliating 
change  is  wrought  here  in  this  man  of  .scientific  genius  by  des- 
potic authority  acting  in  the  name  of  religion  !  Just  before  soar- 
ing to  the  stars,  and  revealing  to  mortals  a  new  heavens,  and  now 
rudely  struck  down,  and  with  wings  all  broken  draggling  on  the 
earth !  But  as  weeks  and  months  wore  away,  the  mind  of  the 
astronomer  seems  to  have  somewhat  recovered  itself.  There  arose 
in  him  with  his  revived  studies  the  quickening  hope  that  the  deci- 
sions of  the  Papal  Congregations,  if  not  taken  back,  might  yet 
be  allowed  to  slide  into  forgetfulness.  He  especially  grew  more 
confident  in  spirit  and  less  cautious  in  action,  when  in  1623  Car- 
dinal Maffeo  Barberini,  who  had  always  treated  him  with  marked 
consideration  and  kindness,  became  Pope  under  the  name  of  Ur- 
ban VIII.  On  his  visit  to  Rome  the  next  year,  he  was  received 
by  this  Pope  with  the  greatest  distinction,  and  Urban,  in  a  letter 
soon  after  written  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  lauded  Galileo's 
scientific  services,  and  no  less  his  virtue  and  piety.  Relying  upon 
the  favor  which  had  thus  been  shown,  and  fondly  cherishing  the 
hope  that  he  might  unfold  astronomical  truth  at  least  in  hypotheti- 
cal form,  he  addressed  himself  to  the  composition  of  a  work  which 


GALILEO   AND   THE   INQUISITION.  445 

was  to  embody  the  chief  results  of  his  scientific  labors  of  more 
than  forty  years.  This  work  was  his  celebrated  "  Dialogue  on  the 
Two  Systems  of  the  World,  the  Ptolemaic  and  the  Copernican," 
which  was  designed,  as  the  title-page  declares,  to  present  the  nat- 
ural and  philosophical  reasons  for  each  system,  with  no  formal 
summing  up  in  favor  of  either.  It  is  in  reality  a  series  of  dia- 
logues, conducted  by  three  speakers,  two  of  whom  support  the 
Copernican  system,  and  the  third  the  Ptolemaic.  The  two  Co- 
pernican defenders  are  Galileo's  two  pupils,  Salviati  of  Florence, 
and  Sagredo  of  Venice ;  and  the  Ptolemaic  was  one  Simplicius,  a 
pseudonym  which  had  an  ambiguous  meaning.  For  the  common 
mind  it  might  stand  for  the  man  of  simplicity  or  the  "  Simpleton," 
and  for  learned  readers  it  might  represent,  as  the  author  after- 
wards declared  it  really  did,  the  writer  of  that  name  of  the  sixth 
century,  who  wrote  a  commentary  on  an  astronomical  work  of 
Aristotle.  Salviati  and  Sagredo  bring  forward  the  arguments 
for  Copernicus  with  such  clearness  and  force  of  conviction,  and  so 
completely  answer  all  the  objections  of  the  unfortunate  Simplicius, 
that  the  unprejudiced  reader  can  hardly  help  giving  the  palm  to 
the  new  theory  over  the  old.  And  inasmuch  as  the  writer  fur- 
nishes Simplicius  with  all  possible  arguments  for  the  defense  of 
his  cause,  and  most  conscientiously  puts  into  his  mouth  all  possible 
objections  against  the  idea  of  the  earth's  motion,  the  total  discom- 
fiture of  Aristotle  and  Ptolemy  seems  to  be  turned  all  the  more 
decisively  to  a  victory  for  Copernicus.  And  yet  at  every  new  turn 
in  that  direction  the  asseveration  comes  in  from  one  or  the  other 
Copernican,  that  no  ultimate  decision  on  the  doubtful  question 
can  be  reached  by  mathematics  and  physics  or  by  logic  and  phi- 
losophy, but  only  "  by  a  higher  intelligence ; "  and  Salviati  re- 
peatedly protests  to  Simplicius,  that  by  no  means  will  he  maintain 
the  truth  of  the  Copernican  doctrine,  on  the  contrary  must  declare 
it  as  possibly  only  a  fancy  or  a  vain  chimera.  The  manuscript  of 
this  work  when  completed  Galileo  took  with  him  to  Rome,  sub- 
mitted it  to  the  papal  censorship,  and  obtained  the  formal  permis- 
sion to  publish  it.  The  work,  though  delayed  in  the  publication  by 
many  causes  for  nearly  two  years,  at  length  was  issued  at  Florence, 
in  1632,  bearing  the  Imprimatur  both  of  the  Florentine  Inquisitor- 
General  and  also  of  the  papal  censor  at  Rome.  Once  published 
and  circulated,  its  success  as  a  scientific  work  was  simply  un- 
precedented. It  carried  with  it  all  truth-loving  and  independent 
among  the  learned,  and  all  intelligent  ordinary  readers,  who  were 


446  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

not  under  the  servitude  of  prejudice.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  had  arrayed  against  it  and  its  author,  with  the  utmost  bitter- 
ness and  fury  of  opposition,  all  ultra-conservatives  in  science  and 
theology,  and  most  of  all  the  leaders  of  the  Jesuit  order  in  every 
province  of  their  manifold  and  all-penetrating  influence.  Pope 
Urban  himself  was  fixed  in  the  conviction,  whether  of  himself  or 
through  the  enemies  of  Galileo,  that  the  interests  of  the  church 
and  the  authority  of  the  Bible  were  in  deadly  peril  from  the  newly 
published  heretical  work.  These  motives  were  reinforced  by  a 
strong  personal  one,  which  worked  most  mischievously  against 
Galileo's  cause.  This  was  the  calumnious  assertion,  which  he  was 
made  to  believe,  that  he  himself  was  maliciously  meant  in  Sim- 
plicius  of  the  Dialogue.  Whether  or  not  the  wounded  vanity  of 
this  high-spirited  Pope  thus  entered  as  a  factor  into  the  prosecu- 
tion soon  to  come,  it  is  certain  that  the  friendly  disposition  which 
he  had  hitherto  showed  to  Galileo  now  suddenly  turned  to  an 
apparent  personal  aversion. 

Six  months  after  the  publication  of  the  "  Dialogue,"  the  Pope 
appointed  a  special  commission  for  the  examination  of  its  doc- 
trines ;  and  upon  an  unfavorable  report  which  was  made,  Galileo 
was  summoned  to  appear  before  the  Inquisition  at  Rome.  Ill  in 
body  and  dejected  in  mind,  the  astronomer  begged  for  a  hearing  at 
Florence  rather  than  at  Rome,  or  at  least  for  a  delay.  His  ear- 
nest entreaties,  in  which  he  was  joined  by  his  prince,  were  all  in 
vain,  and  at  length,  when  the  summons  grew  peremptory,  and 
looked  towards  force,  he  set  out  on  his  journey  to  Rome,  and 
reached  the  city,  borne  in  a  litter,  in  January,  1633.  During  his 
stay  in  Rome  he  was  treated  as  a  prisoner  of  the  Inquisition,  but, 
certainly  it  must  be  said,  was  treated  as  such  with  unusual  clem- 
ency. Twice,  and  in  all  seventeen  days,  he  was  in  official  cus- 
tody, and  then  in  a  room  in  the  palace  of  the  Inquisition.  He 
was  never  in  a  prison.  The  trial  continued  from  the  12th  of 
April  to  the  end  of  July.  The  indictment  ran,  that  he  had  de- 
fended the  Copernican  doctrine,  which  in  1616  had  been  declared 
false  and  unscriptural,  and  so  had  subjected  himself  to  the  charge 
of  heresy.  To  his  reply,  that  in  his  "  Dialogue  "  he  had  devel- 
oped the  arguments  for  the  Ptolemaic  and  the  Copernican  system, 
without  teaching  positively  either,  it  was  rejoined  that  he  had  at 
least  represented  the  Copernican  view  as  probable,  and  that  an 
unscriptural  opinion  could  not  be  probable.  To  the  further  plea 
of  Galileo,  that  his  book  had  been  submitted  to  censorship,  and 


GALILEO   AND   THE  INQUISITION.  447 

had  been  approved,  it  was  replied  that  he  had  gained  the  approval 
surreptitiously,  inasmuch  as  he  had  not  informed  the  censor  that 
in  1616  he  had  promised  never  to  enter  into  any  discussion  of  the 
Copernican  system.  Thereupon  Galileo  declared  that  he  remem- 
bered only  that  Cardinal  Bellarmin  had  in  that  year  forbidden 
him  only  to  defend  the  Copernican  system,  and  that  he  thought 
he  had  not  acted  contrary  to  that  prohibition  ;  that  he  had  no 
remembrance  of  any  order  to  enter  into  no  discussion  of  the  sys- 
tem. At  this  stage  of  the  trial  there  was  put  in  evidence  against 
the  prisoner  the  alleged  minute  of  the  Inquisition  record,  accord- 
ing to  which  such  a  prohibition  had  been  issued  to  Galileo  on 
the  26th  of  February,  1616,  in  the  presence  of  the  notary  and 
witnesses.  The  prisoner,  however,  protested  that  this  prohibition 
had  never  been  made  to  him.  The  publication  of  the  documents 
of  the  trial  clearly  proves  that  on  this  head  the  prisoner  was  in  the 
right  and  the  tribunal  in  the  wrong.  In  the  first  place,  the  min- 
ute has  no-signature  to  it  nor  any  mark  whatever  of  attestation, 
and  is,  therefore,  without  any  legal  validity ;  and  it  is  incredible 
how  it  could  have  been  used  as  evidence  by  a  tribunal  professing 
to  be  intelligent  and  honest.  Besides,  there  is  strong  evidence 
against  its  genuineness.  It  is  in  manifest  contradiction  to  two 
other  documents,  both  unquestionably  genuine,  the  one  the  proto- 
col of  the  3d  of  March,  1616,  the  other  the  certificate  of  Cardinal 
Bellarmin  of  the  26th  of  May  of  the  same  year.  It  is  also  con- 
trary to  Galileo's  repeated  assertions  during  the  trial  and  in  his 
written  defense,  and  in  his  private  letters.  In  addition,  it  is 
wholly  incredible  that  if  such  a  prohibition  had  been  issued,  and 
Galileo  had  promised  to  abide  by  it,  the  papal  censors  should  have 
been  ignorant  of  such  an  important  fact.  This  minute  has  there- 
fore been  pronounced  on  these  grounds  by  Gherardi,  and  by  von 
Gebler  and  other  writers,  to  be  a  forged  document,  fabricated  after 
the  first  trial  to  make  a  secure  basis  of  evidence  for  the  second 
one.  This  questionable  minute  was,  however,  allowed  to  go  into 
the  case  against  the  prisoner,  and  it  entered  largely  into  the  ground 
of  his  conviction.  Strong  as  are  the  above  considerations  against 
the  genuineness  of  this  document,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  it 
was  forged,  and  for  the  reason  alleged,  inasmuch  as -the  Inqui- 
sition might  have  condemned  Galileo  without  the  commissary's 
prohibition,  merely  upon  Bellarmin' s  admonition,  as,  by  acqui- 
escence in  that,  Galileo  had  promised  to  give  up  (deserere)  the 
obnoxious  opinion,  contrary  to  reason  and  nature  though  such  a 


448  GALILEO   AND  THE   INQUISITION. 

promise  certainly  was.  It  may  be  that  the  document  is  the  first 
draft  gotten  ready  by  the  notary,  in  expectation  that  Galileo 
would  not  acquiesce  in  the  admonition,  and  that,  instead  of  be- 
ing destroyed,  it  was  preserved,  and,  whether  by  bona  or  mala  fide 
got  into  the  record  as  a  minute  of  a  real  and  not  an  anticipated 
transaction.  That  the  prohibition,  however,  was  never  given,  and 
that  Galileo  never  made  the  promise,  and  that  the  use  in  evidence 
of  the  minute  was  an  illegal  proceeding,  no  unprejudiced  mind 
can  entertain  the  slightest  possible  doubt.  On  the  other  side,  the 
publication  of  the  Vatican  manuscript  has  acquitted  the  Inquisi- 
tion of  the  traditional  charge  that  Galileo  was  subjected  to  the 
judicial  process  of  torture.  The  evidence  clearly  is  that  he  was 
threatened  with  torture,  but  that  the  threat  was  not  executed.  But 
as  we  read  this  part  of  the  record,  we  cannot  but  say,  far  better  for 
himself  and  his  after  fame  had  he  been  put  to  the  torture,  and 
the  truth  of  his  real  opinions  thus  have  been  elicited  and  even 
wrested  from  him.  It  is  a  most  humiliating  page  on  the  record. 
He  has  just  been  examined  on  the  question  of  his  still  holding  or 
not  to  the  Copernican  doctrine  and  has  put  in  a  solemn  negative. 
Then  he  was  told  that  his  "  Dialogue  "  showed  that  he  held  to  the 
doctrine,  and  that  if  he  did  not  confess  the  truth  he  would  be 
proceeded  against  by  the  fitting  methods  of  law.  The  reply  was : 
"  I  do  not  hold  and  have  not  held  this  opinion  since  I  was  admon- 
ished to  give  it  up.  I  am  here  in  your  hands;  do  with  me  as  you 
please."  Then  it  was  said  again,  and  now  plainly,  that  he  must 
own  the  truth  or  be  put  to  the  torture.  His  reply  was :  "  I  am 
here  to  yield  obedience ;  as  I  have  said,  I  have  not  held  to  this 
opinion  since  the  decision  was  made  against  it."  The  record  then 
ends  thus :  "  And  as  nothing  further  could  be  had  in  execution  of 
the  decree,  he  was  remanded  to  his  place,  after  subscribing  his 
name  to  the  record."  But  these  words,  and  many  others  like 
them,  which  he  had  uttered,  were  too  palpably  untrue  to  be  of 
any  avail.  On  the  following  day,  the  22d  of  June,  1633,  the  sen- 
tence of  the  Holy  Office,  bearing  upon  it  the  sanction  of  the 
Holy  Father,  was  read  to  him  in  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  so- 
pra  Minerva,  the  same  church  from  whose  high  altar  looks  down 
the  "Christ"  of  Galileo's  great  countryman,  Michael  Angelo. 
The  sentence  was  for  substance  as  follows :  Galileo,  in  that  he  has 
believed  and  taught  the  false  and  unscriptural  doctrine  that  the 
sun  is  the  centre  of  the  world  and  does  not  move  from  east  to 
west  and  that  the  earth  moves,  has  subjected  himself  to  the  suspi- 


GALILEO   AND  THE   INQUISITION.  449 

cion  of  heresy ;  the  penalties,  however,  affixed  to  such  a  trans- 
gression by  the  holy  canons  may  be  remitted,  on  condition  that  he 
abjure  and  curse  and  abhor  the  aforesaid  heresy,  and  all  other 
heresies.  The  "  Dialogue  "  published  by  him  is  to  be  prohibited. 
He  himself  is  condemned  to  imprisonment  for  such  time  as  may 
hereafter  be  determined  by  the  Holy  Office,  and  moreover  must 
for  three  years  utter  in  prayer  once  a  week  the  seven  penitential 
psalms.  Galileo's  abjuration  immediately  followed.  The  form 
accords  with  the  sentence,  and  with  unimportant  omissions  runs  as 
follows :  — 

"  I  swear  that  I  have  ever  believed,  and  now  believe,  and  with 
God's  help  ever  will  believe,  all  that  the  Holy  Catholic  and  Apos- 
tolic Roman  Church  holds,  preaches,  and  teaches.  But  because  I 
have  been  suspected  of  heresy  by  the  Holy  Office,  for  believing 
that  the  sun  is  the  centre  of  the  world  and  is  stationary,  and  the 
earth  is  not  the  centre  and  that  it  moves,  therefore,  in  order  to  re- 
move this  suspicion,  I  abjure,  condemn,  and  abhor  the  aforesaid 
heresy,  and  all  other,  and  I  furthermore  swear  that  in  future  I  will 
never  maintain  by  writing  or  word  of  mouth,  what  may  bring  me 
under  like  suspicion,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  if  I  shall  know  of 
any  one  as  heretically  inclined,  I  will  report  him  to  this  Holy  Of- 
fice. I  furthermore  solemnly  promise  that  I  will  completely  fulfill 
all  penalties  already  laid,  or  to  be  laid,  upon  me  by  this  Holy  Of- 
fice. Should  I  ever  violate  these  promises  and  oaths  of  mine,  then 
I  will  subject  to  all  penalties  affixed  to  such  offenses.  So  help  me 
God,  and  these  holy  Gospels,  which  I  here  and  now  touch  with  my 
hands." 

This  form  Galileo  pronounced  upon  his  knees.  That,  however, 
he  was  clothed  in  any  dress  of  a  penitent,  or  of  a  condemned  male- 
factor, is  one  of  the  many  fictions  which  later  traditions  have  flung 
about  this  sad  scene.  Also,  that  on  rising  from  his  knees  he 
uttered  the  words,  " Eppur  si  muove"  belongs  to  the  same  cycle 
of  legends.  On  the  day  after,  Galileo  was  allowed  by  the  Pope 
to  take  up  his  abode  in  the  house  of  the  Tuscan  ambassador.  A 
week  later,  permission  was  given  him  to  live  in  Siena,  with  an 
accompanying  order  not  to  leave  that  city  without  consent  of  the 
Inquisition.  On  the  1st  of  December,  1633,  he  was  allowed  to  re- 
move to  his  country  estate,  not  far  from  Florence,  under  the  con- 
dition that  he  was  there  to  receive  no  visits.  The  petition  which 
he  submitted,  not  long  after,  to  go  to  Florence  for  medical  treat- 
ment, was  refused,  and  he  was  bidden  to  refrain  from  any  further 


450  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

petition  of  that  sort,  on  pain  of  being  called  back  to  his  place  of 
confinement  in  the  Inquisition  building  at  Rome.  Five  years  later, 
in  February,  1638,  the  inquisitor  at  Florence  was  charged  to  in- 
vestigate Galileo's  health,  and  to  report  upon  the  same,  and  also 
whether  his  return  to  Florence  might  lead  to  a  renewal  of  hereti- 
cal discussion.  The  inquisitor  replied  as  follows :  "  The  astrono- 
mer is  quite  blind,  and  is  suffering  from  severe  bodily  ailment  and 
perpetual  sleeplessness.  The  physician  thinks  he  will  never  re- 
cover. He  looks  more  like  a  corpse  than  a  living  man."  There- 
upon Galileo  had  permission  to  live  in  his  own  house  in  Florence, 
under  the  express  condition  that  he  was  neither  to  make  or  receive 
any  visits.  Another  formal  application  needed  to  be  made  to  the 
Holy  Office  to  procure  permission  from  the  holy  apostolic  Catholic 
Church  for  this  blind,  feeble,  dying  old  man  to  step  out  of  his 
house  to  hear  Mass  in  a  neighboring  church.  But  let  me  linger 
no  longer  on  the  sad  details  of  the  last  years  of  his  life.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1639  he  was  borne  back  to  his  place  at 
Arcetri.  There  he  died  on  the  8th  of  January,  1642,  in  the  sev- 
enty-eighth year  of  his  age,  in  the  faith  and  under  the  comforting 
last  offices  of  the  church  of  which  he  had  ever  been  a  faithful 
member.  His  son  and  his  two  pupils,  Viviani  and  Torricelli,  were 
with  him  in  his  last  hours,  and  officers  of  the  Inquisition  saw  him 
close  his  eyes  in  death.  But  the  ecclesiastical  power  which  had 
persecuted  him  when  living,  pursued  him  also  to  his  grave.  His 
wish  expressed  in  his  will  to  be  buried  in  his  family  tomb,  in  the 
Church  of  Santa  Croce,  was  denied  him ;  he  was  put  away  by  him- 
self in  a  side  chapel,  and  by  papal  direction  no  stone  was  to  mark 
the  spot  where  he  lay.  This  church  ban  lay  upon  the  dead  astron- 
omer for  nearly  a  century ;  till  at  last,  in  1737,  by  the  grace  of  the 
Inquisition,  his  remains  were  deposited  in  the  family  tomb,  and  a 
monument  erected  to  his  memory,  and  then,  too,  no  inscription 
might  be  carved  upon  it  till  it  had  passed  the  Inquisition's  inspec- 
tion. But  long  before  this  tardy  honor  was  done  to  the  ashes  of 
Galileo,  the  truths  for  which  he  had  struggled  and  suffered  had 
passed  quite  victoriously  far  beyond  the  dictum  of  Pope  or  church, 
into  the  knowledge  and  faith  of  the  world.  The  church  authori- 
ties at  last  gave  up  all  opposition  to  it,  but  only  when  opposition 
was  naught  but  a  solecism.  Not  till  the  year  1757  did  it  seem  to 
the  Congregation  of  the  Index  that  the  right  time  had  come  to 
erase  from  the  decree  of  the  5th  of  March,  1616,  the  general  pro- 
hibition against  all  books  which  taught  the  mobility  of  the  earth. 


GALILEO   AND   THE   INQUISITION.  451 

The  learned  and  enlightened  Pope,  Benedict  XIV.,  gladly  gave 
his  sanction  to  the  proposition  on  the  llth  of  May  of  that  year, 
and  so  the  prohibition  was  removed.  Nevertheless,  the  special  pro- 
hibition of  the  original  edition  of  Copernicus,  of  a  book  of  Kep- 
ler, and  the  "  Dialogue  "  of  Galileo,  remained  in  full  force  down  to 
the  present  century.  The  last  of  these  works  appeared,  indeed,  in 
Padua,  in  1744 ;  but  it  was  allowed  to  be  published  only  with  the 
sentence  against  Galileo  prefixed  to  it,  together  with  Galileo's  ab- 
juration. As  late  as  1820,  Professor  Settele  of  Rome  wrote  a  book 
on  astronomy,  but  the  imprimatur  of  Padre  Anfossio,  the  papal 
censor,  was  refused  him,  because  in  it  he  treated  the  Copernican 
views,  not  as  hypotheses,  but  as  ascertained  facts.  But  the  pro- 
fessor appealed  to  Pope  Pius  VII.,  who  referred  the  matter  to  the 
Inquisition.  The  result  was  a  formal  decree,  issued  in  1822,  under 
the  sanction  of  the  Pope,  by  which  permission  of  publication  was 
vouchsafed  to  all  works  which  taught  (I  quote  from  the  decree) 
"the  universal  opinion  of  modern  astronomers  touching  the  mobil- 
ity of  the  earth  and  the  immobility  of  the  sun."  In  the  next  edi- 
tion of  the  "  Index,"  published  in  1835,  the  books  of  Copernicus, 
Kepler,  and  Galileo  were,  for  the  first  time,  dropped  out  from  the 
prohibited  works.  Thus  it  was  that  the  declaration  of  the  two 
congregations  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  Index,  confirmed  by  the 
Pope's  sanction,  was  published  to  the  world,  that  both  the  Popes, 
Paul  V.  and  Urban  VIII.,  had  been  in  error  when  they  declared 
the  Copernican  doctrine  to  be  a  heresy.  This  radical  change 
seems  to  bear  quite  decisively  against  the  infallibility  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  and  of  its  papal  head ;  and  it  is  of  no  avail  to  say  that 
the  Popes  whose  decision  was  thus  reversed  by  their  apostolical 
successor  did  not  speak  ex  cathedra.  The  fact  stands  there,  nev- 
ertheless, that  the  very  same  thing  which  was  declared  in  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  by  two  Popes,  to  be  a  heresy,  was  declared  by  a 
Pope  in  the  nineteenth  century  to  be  allowable  doctrine.  Cardi- 
nal Bellarmin,  who  communicated  the  admonition  to  Galileo,  char- 
acterized the  declaration  of  the  heresy  (I  quote  again  his  own 
words)  "  as  a  declaration  given  by  our  lord  (the  Pope),  and  pub- 
lished by  the  Congregation  of  the  Index ;  "  and  after  the  condem- 
nation of  Galileo  by  a  tribunal  over  which  Urban  VIII.  presided, 
the  sentence  was  sent  abroad,  by  papal  order,  to  all  the  papal  nun- 
cios in  Europe,  and  to  all  bishops  and  inquisitors  throughout  Italy. 
From  these  can  it  be  maintained  that  these  two  Popes  acted  in 
these  proceedings  only  as  private  persons,  and  not  ex  cathedra  ? 


452  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

But  if  it  can  be  maintained,  then  it  necessarily  follows  that  the 
Copernican  doctrine  had  never  been  pronounced  a  heresy,  and  so 
the  whole  process  against  Galileo  for  heresy  rested  on  no  ecclesi- 
astical basis  whatever.  Certainly  no  ecumenical  council  had  pro- 
nounced upon  the  subject,  and  neither  the  Inquisition  nor  the  In- 
dex Congregation,  nor  both  together,  were  competent  to  make  a 
declaration  of  heresy,  and  so  if  Pope  Paul  V.  did  not,  in  this  case, 
speak  ex  cathedra,  then  Galileo  was  tried  and  condemned  con- 
trary to  the  principles  and  usages  of  the  Catholic  Church.  But 
only  an  extreme  Catholic  or  an  extreme  Protestant  may  care  to 
dwell  on  this  part  of  this  subject.  For  most  students  of  ecclesias- 
tical and  scientific  history,  the  great  lesson  taught  here  by  the 
whole  melancholy  transaction  is  the  unwisdom  as  well  as  impo- 
tence of  any  church  authority  in  contending  against  the  freedom 
of  honest  inquiry  in  matters  of  science,  and  especially  in  contend- 
ing against  laws  which  are  the  legitimate  expression  of  general 
facts  in  nature.  To  use  an  Old  Testament  poetical  expression, 
which,  so  far  as  I  know,  even  mediaeval  theologians  have  never 
taken  literally,  it  will  only  be  another  illustration  of  the  stars  in 
their  courses  fighting  against  Sisera. 

But  let  us  remember,  in  explanation,  if  not  in  excuse,  of  the 
proceedings  against  Galileo,  that  his  astronomical  views  seemed 
to  strike  such  a  radical  blow  at  the  fundamental  reigning  concep- 
tions of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  indeed  of  Protestant  churches 
as  well.,  as  to  render  their  acceptance  or  toleration  scarcely  possi- 
ble. If,  as  all  men  and  all  good  Christians  had  believed,  the 
earth  was  no  more  the  centre  of  the  universe,  it  seemed  then 
that  Christianity  and  the  Christian  church  was  no  longer  the 
centre  of  the  world's  history.  If  this  planet  were  only  a  speck 
in  the  infinite  space  of  nature,  it  seemed  hardly  tenable  or  credi- 
ble that  the  Deity  had  come  down  into  such  an  insignificant  corner 
of  creation,  to  become  incarnate  in  man,  and  to  live  and  die  for 
the  salvation  of  the  human  race.  One  cannot  help  recalling  in 
contrast  how  such  a  view,  put  forward  in  later  times  by  unbeliev- 
ers, appeared  to  be  so  formidable  an  argument  against  the  Chris- 
tian system  that  its  refutation  was  the  occasion  and  the  design  of 
Dr.  Chalmers'  magnificent  "Discourses  on  the  Modern  Astron- 
omy." Let  it  also  be  added  to  this  fact  of  the  prevailing  Christian 
conceptions  at  the  time  of  Galileo,  that  the  importance  attached 
by  the  Catholic  Church  to  the  authority  of  tradition,  and  the 
proceedings  against  the  innovating  astronomer  are  further  ex- 


GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION.  453 

plained,  though  by  no  means  justified.  It  was  logically  inconsis- 
tent with  the  very  principles  and  usages  of  this  church  to  tolerate 
a  doctrine  and  its  consequent  interpretation  of  Scripture  directly 
opposed  to  the  doctrine  and  scriptural  interpretation  which  hith- 
erto had  always  and  universally  obtained.  Here,  if  anywhere, 
was  applicable,  in  fullest  force,  the  dogma  of  quod  semper,  quod 
ubique,  quod  ab  omnibus  creditum  est,  for  until  Copernicus  what 
had  been  so  universally  and  always  and  everywhere  believed  as 
the  revolution  of  the  sun  around  the  earth  ?  But  yet  is  it  not  fair 
to  say  that  if  this  trial  and  condemnation  of  Galileo  was  thus  in 
logical  consistency  with  Catholic  principle  and  conduct,  then  so 
much  the  worse  for  that  principle  and  its  consequences.  A  church 
which,  by  its  very  constitution,  must  needs  condemn  the  incon- 
testible  results  of  science,  and  cannot  tolerate  the  unprejudiced 
observation  of  nature,  nor  the  maintenance  and  discussion  of 
physical  laws,  and  yet  must  finally  allow  and  concede  by  decree 
what  by  decree  it  has  denied  and  condemned,  —  how  can  it  defend 
its  claim  to  be  an  infallible  keeper  of  truth  and  the  infallible 
guide  of  mankind?  But  apart  from  all  consideration  of  Catholic 
principles,  this  condemning  sentence  of  the  Inquisition,  considered 
simply  as  a  prosecuting  tribunal,  must  itself  be  condemned  alike  by 
law  and  by  morality.  In  addition  to  the  points  which  have  been 
incidentally  made  in  the  course,  it  is  enough  for  the  legal  con- 
demnation of  the  entire  prosecution,  that  the  book  for  which  Gali- 
leo was  tried  and  sentenced  had  been  previously  submitted  to 
the  papal  censorship,  and  had  received  its  formal  approbation. 
When  the  book  was  published  in  Florence  it  came  into  the  world 
fortified  by  the  Imprimatur  of  the  papal  censor,  of  the  Florentine 
General  Inquisitor,  of  the  Vicar- General  of  Florence,  and  of 
two  other  subordinate  authorities.  These  were  the  constituted 
authorities  of  the  church,  and  it  was  their  constitutional  function 
to  attend  to  this  very  business  of  deciding  upon  the  orthodox 
character  of  books  to  be  sent  forth  to  the  world.  By  giving  their 
formal  approbation  to  Galileo's  work,  they  took  upon  themselves 
the  responsibility  of  publication,  and,  through  them  as  agents,  the 
church  itself  and  its  head  as  the  principal  assumed  the  same  re- 
sponsibility, and  the  writer  thereby  was  relieved  of  such  responsi- 
bility. Further,  it  was  simply  an  impertinence  to  say,  as  was 
said  in  the  indictment  and  in  the  examination,  that  the  accused 
had  not  told  the  censor  that  an  order  had  been  issued  to  him 
not  to  write  such  a  book,  and  that  he  had  promised  to  obey  it, 


454  GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION. 

and  therefore  that  he  had  gained  the  permission  surreptitiously. 
What  an  extraordinary  idea,  that  the  author  should  thus  volunteer 
information  to  the  constituted  censor,  and  to  teach  him  what  he 
ought  to  know  himself,  if,  indeed,  it  was  a  thing  to  be  known  at 
all !  But  finally,  on  this  head,  it  is  decisively  to  be  added  that, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  the  alleged  order  was  never  given  to 
Galileo  at  all,  and  so  there  was  nothing  of  the  sort  to  be  told,  or 
to  be  known  by  Galileo  or  by  any  one  else.  It  is  manifest,  there- 
fore, that  the  offense  of  publishing  the  celebrated  "  Dialogue " 
was  chargeable  upon  the  censorship  of  the  church,  and  upon  the 
church  itself,  and  not  all  upon  the  author  of  the  book.  The  con- 
sent once  formally  given  by  the  church  authorities  and  the  respon- 
sibility thus  assumed,  the  utmost  to  be  legally  done  afterwards,  in 
case  the  book  were  judged  to  be  heterodox,  was  to  retract  the  con- 
sent and  prohibit  further  publication  ;  but  no  punishment  might 
justly  be  inflicted  upon  the  author  himself.  And  yet  this  feeble 
old  man,  broken  down  in  body  and  spirit  by  trouble  and  disap- 
pointment, was  dragged  through  that  tedious  three  months'  trial, 
and  condemned  and  sentenced  for  heresy,  and  in  penalty  thereof 
subjected  to  a  restraint  of  all  freedom  of  life  and  action,  which  lay 
upon  him  for  nine  weary  years,  till  at  last  it  wore  him  into  his 
grave.  But  far  more  serious  than  all  else  are  the  moral  grounds 
on  which  the  condemnation  of  Galileo  is  to  be  condemned.  He 
was  sentenced  by  a  Christian  tribunal  to  abjure  and  curse  as  here- 
sies in  religion,  truths  in  nature  which  he  had  reached  by  surest 
proof,  and  which  he  as  firmly  believed  as  his  own  existence.  Con- 
sider in  its  bearings  upon  the  members  of  the  Holy  Office  the 
moral  character  of  that  transaction,  —  Galileo's  abjuration.  Of 
the  seven  cardinals  who  signed  their  names  to  the  sentence,  there 
was  assuredly  not  one  who  believed  in  his  heart  that  Galileo  had 
changed  his  opinion  touching  the  laws  of  the  universe  in  conse- 
quence of  their  sentence.  And  yet,  in  presence  of  that  Christian 
tribunal,  the  Pope  its  presiding  head,  and  of  an  assemblage  of 
Christian  cardinals  and  prelates,  at  the  bidding  of  a  Christian 
ecclesiastical  authority,  Galileo  kneels  there  in  a  Christian  church 
and  asserts  in  form  of  solemn  oath,  his  hand  upon  the  Holy  Gos- 
pels, that  the  doctrine  of  the  truth  of  which  he  had  no  doubt,  after 
the  sentence  any  more  than  before,  he  abjures  (abjureC),  curses 
(maledicat),  and  abhors  (et  detestetur)  with  sincere  heart  (corde 
sincero^)  and  unfeigned  faith  (et  fide  non  fata).  Thus,  in  honor 
of  God  and  of  Christ's  Church,  in  accordance  with  the  bidding  of 


GALILEO  AND  THE  INQUISITION.  455 

the  Holy  Catholic  Office,  was  a  formal  perjury  uttered  by  the  most 
learned  man  of  Italy,  who  for  more  than  forty  years  had  achieved 
more  in  the  cause  of  science  than  any  man  of  his  time. 

And  in  this  transaction  a  sad  part  indeed  it  is  which  is  done  by 
Galileo  himself.  From  the  very  inception  of  the  trial  he  aban- 
dons every  thought  of  defending  his  own  convictions  ;  he  feels 
himself  given  over  to  a  power  against  which  he  cannot  contend  ; 
his  sole  weapon  is  submission.  But  one  may  not  judge  him 
harshly,  but  rather  try  to  see  how  such  an  end  were  possible  of 
such  a  career.  By  nature  his  impulse  to  the  investigation  of  truth 
was  far  greater  than  his  moral  courage  ;  his  character  fell  far 
below  the  endowments  of  his  mind.  We  may  compare  him  in 
this  respect  with  his  contemporary,  Lord  Bacon,  in  whom  moral 
weakness  and  intellectual  strength  appear  in  a  yet  more  marked 
contrast.  And  as  Bacon  doubtless  suffered  from  the  corrupting 
influences  of  the  government  under  which  he  lived,  so  Galileo 
from  the  narrowing  and  weakening  influence  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  So  far  from  not  being  a  good  Catholic,  as  his  enemies 
declared,  Galileo  was  only  too  loyal  and  faithful  a  servant  of  the 
church.  He  grew  up  and  lived  and  acted  under  far  too  submis- 
sive a  faith  in  its  claims  upon  his  obedience.  From  the  time  that 
his  discoveries  and  his  convictions  brought  him  into  collision  with 
the  church,  he  labored  under  the  delusion  that  the  church  would 
be  won  to  the  truth  which  had  won  his  own  mind  and  heart,  and 
in  this  delusion  he  was  ever  striving  to  gain  validity  and  adoption 
for  his  views,  while  yet  he  shrank  from  direct  conflict  with  the 
church  by  endeavoring  in  all  possible  ways  to  render  an  outward 
and  formal  obedience  to  its  will.  When  at  last  he  was  brought  to 
the  alternative  of  free  inquiry  and  authority,  he  submitted  to  the 
latter  ;  rather  than  defend  the  truth  even  to  the  death,  he  denied 
and  abjured  it,  submitting  his  reason  and  his  conscience  to  the 
will  of  an  infallible  church. 


DEAN  STANLEY  ON  BAPTISM. 

WRITTEN   FOR   "THE   WATCHMAN,"  1879. 

AMERICAN  Baptists  doubtless  remember  the  gracious  reception 
by  the  Dean  of  Westminster  of  the  address  presented  to  him  when 
in  this  country  by  a  delegation  of  Baptist  ministers  of  New  York 
and  Brooklyn.  He  was  pleased  to  remark  that  "  it  was  not  too 
much  for  him  to  say,  that  he  regarded  the  great  Baptist  denomina- 
tion with  deep  interest."  With  that  courtly  grace  of  speech  with 
which  the  very  reverend  dean  adorns  everything  which  he  touches, 
he  then  made  mention  of  the  "  principal  ceremony  "  of  the  denom- 
ination, "  that  of  immersion,"  saying,  "  We  ought  to  be  grateful 
to  you  for  having,  almost  alone  in  the  Western  Church,  preserved 
intact  this  singular  and  interesting  relic  of  primitive  and  apostolic 
times;  which  we,"  added  the  church  historian,  with  a  quiet, 
churchly  dignity,  "  which  we  have,  at  least  in  our  practice,  wisely 
discarded."  We  have  been  reminded  of  these  words  of  Dean 
Stanley  in  reading  an  essay  of  his  on  "Baptism,"  published  in  the 
"  Nineteenth  Century  "  for  October.  It  illustrates  his  character- 
istic qualities  as  a  theological  writer,  his  learning,  the  charms  of 
his  style,  the  catholicity  of  his  spirit,  and  especially  the  exceeding 
broadness  of  his  views  on  matters  of  Christian  faith  and  practice, 
and  most  of  all  his  facile  manner  of  setting  aside  what  he  himself 
declares  to  be  the  Scriptural  mode  of  administering  the  ordinance 
of  baptism.  In  regard,  however,  to  the  "  original  form  "  of  the 
ordinance  in  apostolic  times,  and  its  inner  and  abiding  significance, 
nothing  could  be  stronger  on  the  Baptist  side  of  the  subject  than 
the  views  unfolded  and  illustrated  by  Dean  Stanley  in  this  essay. 
We  are  glad  to  put  on  record  in  our  columns  an  abstract  of  these 
views,  and  to  quote  his  words  on  some  important  points,  as  valua- 
ble testimony  to  the  truth.  The  apostolic  baptism  he  describes  as 
expressive  of  a  marvelous  religious  change,  the  greatest  the  world 
had  ever  known.  Men  and  women  in  great  multitudes,  seized  by 
a  common  impulse,  acting  from  irresistible  conviction,  gave  up  all 
former  habits,  their  family,  their  friends,  and  associates,  to  enter 
a  new  society.  That  society  was  one  of  "  brothers,"  and  yet  bound 


DEAN  STANLEY  ON  BAPTISM.  457 

by  ties  closer  than  any  earthly  brotherhood ;  a  society,  all  whose 
members  were  bound  in  remembrance  and  faith  to  One  whom 
they  loved  with  a  love  unspeakable.  Now  the  act  by  which  they 
passed  into  this  new  society  was  at  once  natural  and  expressive. 
It  was  "  a  plunge  into  the  bath  of  purification,"  a  rite  long  known 
among  the  Jews  as  a  symbol  of  a  change  of  life,  and  now  retained 
by  the  command  of  Him  into  whose  name  his  disciples  were  "  bap- 
tized." The  scene  was  sometimes  a  wayside  spring,  sometimes  a 
rushing  river,  or  some  vast  reservoir.  The  water,  so  significant 
of  all  that  was  pure,  "  closed  over  the^heads  of  the  converts,"  and 
"  they  rose  to  the  light  of  heaven,  new  beings."  It  was  an  act 
that  was  figuratively  described  as  a  burial,  a  regeneration,  a  resur- 
rection, "  a  new  creation."  The  writer  then  considers  the  essen- 
tial meaning  of  the  ordinance,  which  he  thinks  still  lives  in  the 
practice  of  the  church,  notwithstanding  the  changes  in  its  form  of 
administration.  Three  things  belong  to  this  essential  meaning. 
And  first,  it  is  a  sign  of  the  purity  which  belongs  to  the  Christian 
disposition  and  character.  By  choosing  water  and  the  use  of  the 
bath  as  the  initiative  Christian  rite,  the  Saviour  meant  to  teach 
that  the  Christian  was  to  be  "  clean  and  pure  in  body  and  in  soul 
and  spirit."  "  Wash  and  be  clean,"  was  the  prophet's  command 
to  the  Syrian.  "  Cleanliness  next  allied  to  godliness  "  was  the 
maxim  of  the  Christian  John  Wesley.  And  this  element  of  the 
significance  of  the  rite  still  remains,  notwithstanding  all  changes 
of  its  form.  "  Every  time  we  see  the  drops  of  water  poured  over 
the  face  in  baptism,"  they  are  "  signs  to  us  of  the  cleanly  habits 
which  our  Master  prized  when  He  founded  the  rite."  /Second, 
the  act  of  baptism,  as  "  an  entire  submersion  in  the  deep  water," 
was  a  sign  of  a  complete  change  of  character.  The  apostles  called 
it  "  the  burial  of  the  old  former  self  and  the  rising  up  of  the  new 
self."  "  We  are  buried,"  said  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  with  Christ  by 
baptism."  This  lesson,  Dr.  Stanley  tells  his  readers,  is  "one 
which  yet  lives,  though  the  essence  of  the  material  form  is  gone. 
It  is  but  the  few  drops  sprinkled,"  he  says,  but  yet  "  the  thing 
signified  still  keeps  before  us  what  Christians  were  intended  to 
be."  To  a  Baptist,  the  simplicity  of  this  language  is  quite  delight- 
ful. But,  third,  "  the  immersion  in  baptism  "  was  also  a  sign  of 
"  the  Christian  profession,"  which  was,  "  to  follow  Christ  and  be 
like  to  Him."  This  was  expressed  by  the  early  Christians  in  two 
ways :  1, "  when  they  came  up  from  the  waters,"  they  were  wrapped 
round  with  a  white  robe,  an  emblem  of  the  moral  fact  that  they 


458  DEAN  STANLEY  ON  BAPTISM. 

were  "  wrapped  with  the  righteousness  of  Christ  in  deed  and  in 
truth  ; "  and  2,  this  was  what  "  made  baptism  a  sacrament  in  the 
original  sense  of  the  word  as  an  oath  of  allegiance"  As  the  Ro- 
man soldier,  on  his  enlistment,  took  the  oath  of  fealty  to  the  em- 
peror, so  the  Christian  convert  bound  himself  by  the  sacrament 
of  baptism  to  follow  his  Master  whithersoever  He  might  lead 
him. 

So  much  for  the  significance  of  baptism  and  its  spiritual  lessons. 
The  learned  writer  thence  passes  to  consider  the  changes  in  the 
administration  of  the  rite,  and  the  lessons  which  he  derives  from 
them.  And  here  we  are  glad  to  give  the  dean's  testimony,  chiefly 
in  his  own  words.  And  first  of  the  mode  he  says,  that  "  for  the 
first  thirteen  centuries  the  almost  universal  practice  was  that  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  which  is  the  very  meaning  of  the  word 
'baptize,'  that  the  baptized  were  immersed  into  the  water.  It 
had,  no  doubt,  the  sanction  of  the  apostles  and  of  their  Master. 
It  had  the  sanction,  too,  of  the  venerable  churches  of  the  early 
ages.  Baptism  by  sprinkling  was  rejected  by  the  whole  ancient 
church  as  no  baptism  at  all.  In  the  Eastern  Church,  baptism  by 
immersion  is  still  continued,-  the  cold  climate  of  Russia  being  no 
obstacle  to  its  continuance  throughout  that  vast  empire.  In  the 
Western  Church  it  still  lingers  among  the  Roman  Catholics  in  the 
solitary  instance  of  the  Cathedral  of  Milan,  and  among  Protest- 
ants in  the  austere  sect  of  the  Baptists.  In  a  version  of  the  Bible 
which  the  Baptist  church  in  America  has  made,  it  has  been 
thought  necessary  —  and  on  philological  grounds  it  is  quite  cor- 
rect [the  italics  are  ours]  — to  translate  John  the  Baptist  by  John 
the  Immerser.  With  these  exceptions  the  whole  Western  Church 
has  now  substituted  for  the  ancient  bath  the  ceremony  of  sprin- 
kling a  few  drops  of  water  on  the  face."  No  one  could  ask  for  a 
better  historical  view  of  the  ordinance  than  this,  and  "  the  Bap- 
tists" can  well  afford  to  be  called  "the  austere  sect"  by  the  very 
reverend  the  dean  of  Westminster,  when  he  describes  them  as  fol- 
lowing in  the  footsteps  of  "  the  glorious  company  of  the  apostles," 
and  of  the  whole  Christian  church  of  "  the  first  thirteen  centu- 
ries." And  now  how  does  Dr.  Stanley  explain  and  justify  this 
departure  from  the  baptism  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  the 
early  church?  His  "obvious  reason"  is  that  "the  practice  of 
immersion,  so  suitable  for  southern  and  eastern  countries,  was  un- 
suitable for  the  tastes  and  convenience  of  the  countries  of  the  west 
and  north."  And  what  is  the  lesson  to  be  learned  ?  Why,  it  is 


DEAN  STANLEY  ON  BAPTISM.  459 

*'  a  striking  example  of  the  triumph  of  common-sense  and  conven- 
ience over  the  bondage  of  form  and  custom.  It  shows  the  wisdom 
of  not  imposing  customs  of  other  nations  and  climates  on  those  to 
whom  they  are  not  congenial."  And  yet  it  was  "  a  great  change  ; 
the  change  from  immersion  to  sprinkling  has  set  aside  the  larger 
part  of  the  language  of  the  apostles  regarding  baptism,  and  has 
altered  the  very  meaning  of  the  word."  We  quite  agree  with 
Dean  Stanley  in  his  concluding  remark  on  this  head,  that  this 
"  substitution  must  have  seemed  to  many  at  the  time,  as  it  now 
seems  to  the  Baptists,  a  very  dangerous  innovation." 

But  the  change  in  respect  to  the  subjects  of  baptism  is  next  dis- 
cussed, and  in  like  manner.  In  the  apostolic  age,  and  in  the  next 
three  centuries,  it  was  "  the  general  rule  that  those  who  came  to 
baptism  came  in  full  age  and  of  their  own  deliberate  choice.  We 
find  a  few  cases  of  the  baptism  of  children,  and  one  of  the  bap- 
tism of  infants.  But  such  instances  as  Chrysostom  and  Augustine 
and  Ambrose  prove  that  the  rite  was  not  only  not  obligatory  (for 
infants),  but  also  not  usual.  The  liturgical  service  of  baptism  was 
formed  entirely  for  adult  converts.  But  since  the  fifth  century 
the  whole  Christian  world  have  practiced  infant  baptism."  With 
like  facility  Dean  Stanley  justifies  this  new  departure  also.  The 
justification  is  obviously  found  in  "  the  Christian  feeling  that  in  a 
Christian  household  every  member  was  consecrated."  The  apos- 
tle taught  in  1  Cor.  vii.  14,  "  that  the  children  were  holy,  because 
the  parents  were  holy."  Of  this  passage  the  dean  remarks,  that 
while  it  "  is  conclusive  against  infant  baptism  in  the  apostolic  age, 
it  is  a  recognition  of  the  permanent  principle  on  which  it  is 
founded.  It  is  the  acknowledgment  of  the  Christian  saintliness 
and  union  of  family  life."  But  infant  baptism,  he  contends,  is 
also  "  a  recognition  of  the  good  which  there  is  in  children,  as  in 
every  human  soul."  In  those  little  children  of  Galilee,  on  whom 
the  Saviour  laid  blessing  hands, "  He  saw  the  likeness  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.  The  substitution  of  infant  baptism  for  adult  bap- 
tism is  thus  a  lesson  of  Christian  charity.  It  is  a  standing  testi- 
mony to  the  value  and  eternal  significance  of  what  Bishop  Butler 
calls  natural  religion.  It  is  the  expression  of  the  proper  place 
(of  children)  in  the  Christian  church  and  in  the  instincts  of  the 
civilized  world."  We  need  not  pass  any  judgment  upon  these 
views.  Their  statement  is  their  own  best  refutation.  If  this  is 
the  best  defense  that  the  "  Nineteenth  Century  "  can  make  —  and 
in  the  person  of  so  learned  an  ecclesiastical  historian  as  Dean 


460  DEAN   STANLEY  ON  BAPTISM. 

Stanley  —  of  "sprinkling"  and  of  "infant  baptism,"  we  appre- 
hend that  they  must  continue  to  go  undefended.  But  we  fancy 
that  some  of  our  pedobaptist  scholars,  as  they  see  the  Dean  of 
Westminster  coming  to  the  rescue  with  these  weapons,  will  take 
up  the  lament  of  Hecuba :  — 

••  Non  tali  auxilio  nee  defensoribus  istis 
Tempus  eget." 


PROFESSOR  TYNDALL'S  BELFAST  ADDRESS. 

WRITTEN   AS   AN   EDITORIAL   FOR    THE   "PROVIDENCE    JOURNAL." 

THE  seventh  edition  of  Professor  Tyndall's  Belfast  Address,  as 
reprinted  by  the  Messrs.  Appleton,  makes  a  volume  of  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  pages,  about  one  half  of  which,  in  preface  and 
appendix,  consists  of  new  matter.  This  edition  contains  also  nu- 
merous additions  silently  inserted  in  the  body  of  the  address. 
In  some  of  these  Mr.  Tyndall  takes  occasion  to  make  still  further 
liberal  uses  of  Lange's  "  History  of  Materialism,"  a  work  to 
which  he  was  indebted,  as  he  very  properly  acknowledged,  for  a 
large  part  of  the  material  of  the  address  as  it  was  at  first  writ- 
ten. We  find  one  passage  introduced  (on  page  58  of  the  Ameri- 
can reprint),  in  the  use  of  which  we  think  that  Mr.  Tyndall  has 
mistranslated  the  German,  and  misinterpreted  his  author.  We 
beg  to  call  attention  to  this  new  portion  of  the  address,  for  the 
view  of  Lange  is  one  of  great  value,  and  ought  to  be  brought  out 
with  its  unimpaired  force  of  truth.  Professor  Tyndall  introduces 
the  quotation  (we  give  his  words)  "  to  say  a  few  words  on  the 
effects,  as  regards  science,  of  the  general  introduction  of  mono- 
theism among  European  nations."  And  here  he  draws  —  and  no 
one  can  object  to  his  doing  so  —  from  an  admirable  passage  in 
Lange,  which  occurs  on  page  150  of  the  first  volume  of  his  work. 
Mr.  Tyndall  first  says,  and,  on  the  whole,  very  truly,  "  Referring 
to  the  condition  of  the  heathen,  who  sees  a  God  behind  every  nat- 
ural event,  thus  peopling  the  world  with  thousands  of  beings, 
whose  caprices  are  incalculable,  Lange  shows  the  impossibility  of 
any  compromise  between  such  notions  and  those  of  science,  which 
proceeds  on  the  assumption  of  never  changing  law  and  causality." 
"  But,"  he  continues  with  characteristic  penetration  (and  now 
Mr.  Tyndall  translates  Lange),  "when  the  great  thought  of  one 
God,  acting  as  a  unit  upon  the  universe,  has  been  seized,  the  con- 
nection of  things  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  cause  and  effect 
is  not  only  thinkable,  but  it  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
assumption.  For  when  I  see  ten  thousand  wheels  in  motion,  and 
know  or  believe  thajt  they  are  all  driven  by  one,  then  I  know  that 


462  PROFESSOR  TYNDALL'S   BELFAST   ADDRESS. 

I  have  before  me  a  mechanism,  the  action  of  every  part  of  which 
is  determined  by  the  plan  of  the  whole.  So  much  being  assumed, 
it  follows  that  I  may  investigate  the  structure  of  that  machine  and 
the  various  motions  of  its  parts.  For  the  time  being,  therefore, 
this  conception  renders  scientific  action  free." 

This  translation  is  rather  a  free  one  throughout,  as  any  one 
may  see  by  comparing  it  with  the  original ;  but  yet,  in  respect 
to  correctness,  it  is  open  to  serious  criticism  only  in  one  place, 
and  that  is  in  the  words  "driven  by  one."  Mr.  Tyndall  here 
represents  Lange  as  putting  the  case  that  the  "ten  thousand 
wheels  "  are  set  in  motion  "  by  one  "  wheel ;  whereas,  Lange's 
supposition  really  is  that "  only  one  single  being  "  puts  them  all  in 
motion  —  words  which  of  course  give  a  very  different  aspect  to 
the  figure,  and  to  the  truth  which  it  is  intended  to  teach.  Lange's 
words  are  as  follows :  "  Denn  wenn  ich  irgendwo  tausend  und 
aber  tausend  Rader  bewegt  sahe,  und  nur  einen  Einzigen  ver- 
muthete,  der  sie  zu  treiben  schiene,  so  wiirde  ich  u.  s.  w." 
Every  one  at  all  acquainted  with  German  sees  at  once  that  the 
words  "  einen  Einzigen  "  can  mean  nothing  but  one  single  being  ; 
and  every  reader  must  see  also  the  bearing  of  the  words  upon  the 
monotheistic  view  of  the  whole  frame  of  nature,  and  of  its  gov- 
ernment, which  the  supposition  is  intended  to  illustrate.  But  lest 
we  may  do  Mr.  Tyndall  injustice  by  giving  only  his  translation, 
we  will  add  his  interpretation,  which  he  gives  in  his  next  two  sen- 
tences, as  follows :  "  In  other  words,  were  a  capricious  God  at  the 
circumference  of  every  wheel,  and  at  the  end  of  each  lever,  the 
action  of  the  machine  would  be  incalculable  by  the  methods  of  sci- 
ence. But  the  action  of  all  its  parts  being  rigidly  determined  by 
their  connections  and  relations,  and  these  being  brought  into  play, 
by  a  single  self-acting  driving-wheel  (the  italics  are  ours,  not 
Mr.  Tyndall's),  then,  though  this  last  prime  mover  may  elude  me, 
I  am  still  able  to  comprehend  the  machinery  which  it  sets  in  mo- 
tion." Now  this  interpretation,  so  far  from  relieving  the  transla- 
tion of  the  mistake,  makes  the  mistake  still  worse.  The  "  self- 
acting  "  is  purely  gratuitous  on  the  part  of  the  translator ;  it  is 
not  in  the  German  at  all.  It  is  clear  enough  what  view  Mr. 
Tyndall  wishes  to  convey  by  the  use  of  that  word,  as  well  as  by 
the  words  "  though  this  last  prime  mover  may  elude  me,"  but  it  is 
just  as  clear  that  the  view  is  his  own,  and  not  Lange's.  Both  in 
the  figure  itself,  and  in  the  universe  which  it  figuratively  repre- 
sents, Lange  makes  the  agent  not  a  mechanical,  but  a  personal 


PROFESSOR  TYNDALL'S  BELFAST  ADDRESS.  463 

one ;  it  is  a  person,  and  only  one  person  ;  and  that  is  the  central 
idea  of  the  whole  passage,  and  the  idea  which  the  translator  quite 
fails  to  give  his  readers.  But  whether  Mr.  Tyndall  be  right  or 
wrong  in  this  matter,  let  us  have  Lange's  idea  in  the  full,  undi- 
ininished  force  of  its  truth.  He  shows  the  unique  relation  which 
Christianity,  as  a  pure  monotheism,  sustains  to  science.  In  con- 
trast with  all  polytheistic  religions,  Christian  monotheism,  by  its 
truth  of  one  only  God  and  his  one  uniform  agency  throughout  the 
universe,  makes  "the  causal  connection  of  all  things  not  only 
thinkable  but  necessary."  It  establishes  the  universal  "  reign  of 
law,"  and  gives  free,  unlimited  scope  to  the  progress  of  science. 


FROUDE'S  C^SAR. 

WRITTEN    FOR   THE    FRIDAY   CLUB,    JANUARY   30,  1880. 

MR.  FROUDE  has  found  a  theme  eminently  suited  to  his  liter- 
ary genius  in  the  Roman  revolution  and  its  master-spirit,  Julius 
Caesar.  The  period  compassed  by  it  is  one  of  unrivaled  historical 
importance  in  its  many  swift  following  events  of  world-wide  sig- 
nificance with  their  rapid  movement  of  affairs  in  politics,  society, 
and  war;  and  with  the  great  men  of  marked  individual  character 
who  figure  in  them  in  numerous  and  brilliant  succession.  It  is  a 
period,  too,  which,  in  its  chief  features,  is  peculiarly  rich  in  dra- 
matic interest.  The  fall  of  the  Roman  republic  closes  a  grand 
drama  of  intensely  real  national  life,  the  career  of  Caesar  marking 
the  catastrophe,  —  his  towering  figure  standing  in  conspicuous 
solitude,  but  only  to  linger  for  a  brief  while  on  the  before 
crowded  and  tumultuous  stage.  Mr.  Froude  quickens  his  readers 
to  a  full  consciousness  of  the  dramatic  character  of  all  that  mem- 
orable era  by  the  power  of  imagination  with  which  he  conceives 
and  represents  it ;  it  is  all  reproduced  with  such  a  vividness  that, 
as  it  moves  on  over  his  pages,  it  affects  the  imagination  and  the 
passions,  even  as  the  scenes  of  some  great  tragedy  which  is  in- 
stinct with  the  truth  of  history  and  real  life.  Indeed,  it  is  not  one 
tragedy  alone  that  he  puts  upon  his  historic  stage,  but  a  series  of 
three,  as  it  were,  after  the  manner  of  the  Greek  Dramatists,  a 
trilogy  of  tragedies,  as  he  takes  into  his  plan  all  that  in  histori- 
cal order  prepared  the  way  for  Caesar,  and  so  combines  with  his 
fortunes  those  of  the  two  Gracchi,  and  then  of  Marius  and  Sulla 
into  a  threefold  action  as  they  all  enter  into  one  and  the  same  cycle 
of  events  which  are  moving  on  to  a  common  catastrophe.  Fortu- 
nate, thus,  in  the  characteristic  features  of  the  theme  itself,  Mr. 
Froude  is  no  less  fortunate  in  the  kindred  character  of  authorities 
on  which  he  relies  for  the  representation  of  the  chief  personages 
and  events.  In  the  Commentaries  of  Caesar  and  the  speeches  and 
letters  of  Cicero,  he  had  access  to  full  and  authentic  records  which 
are  valuable  not  merely  because  these  writers  were  consummate 
masters  of  Latin  prose,  nor  even  because  they  were  contemporary 


FROUDE'S  CAESAR.  465 

with  the  events  they  record,  and  were  also  the  chief est  actors  in 
them ;  their  quite  inestimable  value  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  were 
written  in  such  a  spirit  and  with  such  ends  and  aims  that  they 
reveal  and  bring  to  immediate  view  all  that  is  most  characteristic 
of  the  period  to  which  they  belonged.  The  Commentaries  of  Caesar 
on  the  Gallic  and  Civil  Wars,  though  originally  written  as  mili- 
tary dispatches  to  the  Roman  government,  yet  themselves  illus- 
trate some  of  the  highest  qualities  of  historical  composition.  As 
Cicero  finely  says  of  them  in  his  "  Brutus,"  they  are  straightfor- 
ward and  elegant,  though  divested  of  all  needless  ornaments.  As 
their  author  designed  them,  he  adds,  to  furnish  the  material  for 
history,  conceited  writers  thought  to  deck  them  out  with  the  graces 
of  style ;  but  wise  men  discerned  in  them  such  models  of  pure  and 
brilliant  conciseness  that  they  despaired  of  writing  history  at  all. 
The  conquests  which  the  Gallic  Commentaries  narrate  not  only 
enlarged  the  dominions  and  resources  of  Rome,  but  also  won  for 
Caesar  an  army  and  a  great  military  name  and  power,  and  so 
opened  the  path  before  him  more  than  aught  else  for  the  suprem- 
acy which  he  afterward  attained.  In  this  work,  too,  and  in  his 
work  on  the  Civil  War,  Caesar  adroitly  endeavored  to  put  himself 
right  with  Rome  and  the  world  in  respect  to  his  conduct  and  its 
motives ;  to  justify  his  aggressive  wars  against  the  Gallic  and 
German  tribes,  and  his'  attitude  of  hostility  to  Pompeius  and  the 
senate  as  well  as  to  the  constitution  of  his  country.  From  Cicero 
no  less  than  from  Caesar  has  Mr.  Froude  drawn  most  valuable 
material  for  the  exposition  and  illustration  of  his  theme.  Cicero's 
numerous  speeches,  master  as  he  was  of  Roman  eloquence  in  every 
sphere  of  its  exercise,  the  bar,  the  curia,  and  the  rostra,  touch 
or  unfold  or  fully  discuss  well-nigh  every  great  matter  which  was 
debated  by  the  senate,  every  important  movement  set  on  foot  by 
the  people,  the  career  and  character  of  every  man  who  was  promi- 
nent in  public  life.  But  the  letters  of  Cicero  form  an  affluent 
and  ever  fresh  source  of  knowledge  for  all  that  important  part 
of  the  period  in  which  Caesar  and  Cicero  were  the  prominent 
figures  on  the  scene  of  Roman  life.  They  furnish  altogether  the 
fullest  and  best  materials  for  the  history  of  the  time  as  well  as 
for  the  biography  of  Caesar,  and  also  of  Cicero  and  of  every 
notable  Roman  contemporary  with  them.  We  have  here  a  cor- 
respondence extending  over  a  period  of  twenty-five  years,  carried 
on  perpetually  and  well-nigh  daily,  with  all  the  chief  statesmen 
of  Rome,  and  in  which,  as  the  letters  were  not  designed  for  pub- 


466  FROUDE'S  CAESAR. 

lication,  all  measures  and  their  promoters  or  opponents,  all  mo- 
mentous events  in  every  shifting  phase  of  politics  are  most  freely 
discussed,  and  the  statements  and  opinions  of  their  writers  are 
expressed  with  entire  unreserve.  In  these  disclosures  of  men 
who,  both  by  observation  and  experience,  are  best  qualified  to 
write  of  the  affairs  of  the  country,  you  not  only  get  views  of  all 
that  they  have  said  and  done  in  the  air  and  light  of  public  life, 
but  you  may  follow  them  from  the  Campus  Martius  and  the  Fo- 
rum into  the  interiors  of  their  own  homes  whether  in  their  villas 
or  their  city  mansions,  land  see  them  there  in  their  hours  of  seclu- 
sion amid  their  fluctuations  of  hope  and  fear,  of  triumph  and 
disappointment,  and  listen  to  their  most  secret  thoughts  and  pur- 
poses which  they  scarce  dare  whisper  to  themselves,  and  yet  ven- 
ture to  voice  in  their  confidential  communications  to  trusted 
friends.  One  can  readily  imagine  with  what  studious  fondness 
Mr.  Froude  must  have  lingered  amidst  his  labors  on  these  most 
interesting  remains  of  Roman  letters,  doubtless  often  turning 
aside  from  his  main  course  of  inquiry  to  delight  himself  with  the 
exquisite  diction  of  these  writings  or  gaze  upon  the  pictures  of 
social  and  private  life,  the  studies  of  friendship  or  individual 
character,  and  all  the  inner  play  of  springs  and  motives  of  con- 
duct which  they  constantly  present.  One  cannot  but  notice  the 
evidence  which  this  extensive  correspondence  gives  us  of  the 
highly  cultivated  Roman  society  of  that  generation,  of  the  large 
number  of  its  well-educated  and  literary  men,  and  of  the  genuine 
urbanitas,  to  use  a  favorite  word  of  his,  which  adorned  and 
dignified  their  tone  of  conversation  and  their  style  of  writing. 
We  have  here  the  letters  of  many  men  who  were  constantly  occu- 
pied with  professional  and  public  business,  and  are  not  known  to 
us  as  authors;  but  they  all  write  in  the  same  pure  diction  as 
Cicero  himself.  They  have  not,  indeed,  his  copiousness  and  inim- 
itable grace  of  speech,  his  absolute  mastery  of  the  Roman  tongue, 
whether  for  soberest  discussion  or  for  flexible  play  of  wit  and 
fancy,  but  they  all  carry  in  their  noble  freedom  of  manner,  their 
apt  and  rounded  expression  of  their  thought,  the  genuine  stamp 
of  literary  training  and  taste.  But  it  is,  of  course,  the  letters  to 
Atticus,  making  up  about  one  half  of  the  eight  hundred  in  the 
whole  correspondence,  which  have  the  highest  historical  as  well  as 
literary  value.  We  take  less  to  heart  the  loss  of  so  many  of  the 
"  Orations,"  when  we  have  this  large  collection  of  such  letters 
safe  in  our  hands,  and  may  possess  ourselves  of  their  rich  instruc- 
tion and  entertainment. 


FROUDE'S   CAESAR.  467 

What  makes  these  full  memoirs  of  these  times  so  interesting 
and  valuable  is  the  fact  that  being  written  by  Cicero,  a  man  of 
the  liveliest  imagination  and  warmest  sympathies,  to  the  receptive 
and  congenial  Atticus,  whom  he  loved  and  perfectly  trusted,  they 
unfold  and  discuss  the  men  and  the  measures,  the  plans  and 
the  acts  of  the  passing  days  with  no  cautious  side  looks  towards 
the  public,  but  with  the  absolute  abandon  of  one  who  feels  only 
that  he  is  saying  what  most  interests  him  in  the  ear  and  heart  of 
a  sympathetic  friend,  and  to  whom  he  can  say  with  entire  confi- 
dence whatever  he  will,  whether  grave  or  trifling,  and  whether 
good  or  evil.  Of  the  writer  himself,  and  of  the  great  part  he 
bore  in  all  that  Roman  life,  of  his  innermost  thoughts  and  the 
very  secrets  of  his  soul,  these  letters  are  self-revelations.  Modern 
writers  who  dislike  Cicero  use  these  revelations  as  testimony 
against  his  character,  but  with  all  the  weaknesses  and  faults  they 
disclose,  fair-minded  readers  honor  and  love  him  still.  We  may  be 
sure  that  no  contemporary  statesman  of  Cicero  could  have  borne 
such  a  severe  ordeal  so  well  as  he.  He  has  well  in  hand,  per- 
fectly under  his  command,  even  as  his  Caesar  mastered  the  situa- 
tion in  Gaul,  all  this  mass  of  materials,  which  he  had  to  mould 
and  marshal  into  effective  form ;  the  great  movements  of  the 
time,  whether  of  Rome  itself,  in  the  crowded  streets,  the  noisy 
Forum,  or  in  far-off  camps  and  battlefields,  all  pass  before  the 
reader  in  liveliest  action,  and  the  actors  themselves  become  real 
and  living  persons  to  the  mind.  The  story  of  the  Gallic  cam- 
paigns has  been  often  told  in  modern  times,  but  never  more 
nearly  after  the  original  manner  of  the  Commentaries  themselves, 
Mr.  Froude's  noble  English  marching  at  no  uneven  pace  through 
all  the  clear,  swift  narrative  of  plans  and  battles  and  conquests 
with  the  imperial  Latin  of  Ca3sar. 

When  we  come  to  the  delineation  of  the  lives  and  characters  of 
the  leading  men  of  that  Roman  period,  there  is  room  for  diver- 
gence of  opinion  touching  the  merits  of  Mr.  Froude's  work. 
While  all  will  feel  and  acknowledge  here,  too,  the  artistic  skill 
with  which  his  conceptions  are  wrought  out,  many  will  doubtless 
dissent  from  the  truth  of  the  conceptions  themselves.  Not  that 
these  views  of  Mr.  Froude  are  new  with  him,  except  so  far  as  they 
take  new  form  and  pressure  from  his  own  mind.  They  are  the 
views  of  the  school  of  writers  to  which  Mr.  Froude  belongs,  and 
of  which  Professor  Mommsen  has  made  himself  by  his  learned  and 
brilliant  "  Roman  History "  the  acknowledged  leader ;  writers 


468  FROUDE'S   C^SAR. 

who  are  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  popular  element  in  the  repub- 
lican government  of  this  period  as  against  the  aristocratic,  and  in 
favor  of  imperialism  as  against  the  republican  government  itself. 
These  views  begin  to  appear  in  Mommsen's  treatment  of  the  ca- 
reer of  the  unfortunate  Gracchi,  and,  rising  into  greater  promi- 
nence through  all  the  scenes  of  the  conflict  between  Marius  and 
Sulla,  at  last  find  their  highest  and  crowning  illustration  in  Caesar. 
Hence  Mr.  Froude,  seeing  in  the  uprising  of  the  Gracchi  the  first 
sparks  of  the  coming  revolution,  has  words  of  warning  for  the 
tragic  fate  of  Tiberius  Gracchus,  but  no  sympathy  for  Octavius, 
who  had  been  illegally  degraded  from  the  tribuneship  by  Gracchus, 
and  then  well-nigh  torn  to  pieces  by  the  infuriated  mob,  or  for 
the  murder  of  Scipio  -ZEmilianus,  one  of  the  ablest  and  best 
men  of  any  Roman  time,  whose  only  offense  was  that  he  was 
honestly  opposed  to  the  Gracchian  agrarian  law.  In  his  zeal,  too, 
against  the  aristocracy  he  tells  us  that  in  this  contest  they  had 
"  made  the  first  inroad  on  the  constitution,"  forgetting  that  the  first 
inroad  had  been  made  by  Tiberius  Gracchus  in  setting  at  naught 
the  veto  of  Octavius  as  tribune.  Mr.  Mommsen,  indeed,  desig- 
nates this  act  of  Gracchus  "  as  the  first  breach  in  the  existing 
Ixoi n an  constitution."  I  have  not  space  to  show  in  full  how  these 
leading  opinions  give  complexion  to  Mr.  Froude's  view  of  the 
succeeding  tragical  scenes  of  the  struggle  between  Marius  and 
Sulla.  Very  lenient  he  evidently  is  to  Marius,  though  it  was  he 
who  instituted  the  protracted  reign  of  terror  in  which  Sulla 
reigned,  to  be  sure,  more  terribly  than  himself ;  though  he  also  was 
the  first  to  raise  a  standing  army  in  place  of  the  old  citizen  sol. 
diery  of  Rome,  an  army,  too,  made  up  from  the  dregs  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  so  a  ready  instrument  of  their  general's  ambition,  and 
though  in  one  thing  he  was  certainly  worse  than  Sulla,  with  all 
Sulla's  enormities,  that  he  was  willing  to  join  to  himself  in  his 
treasonable  plans  even  the  enemies  of  his  country ;  but  then  Ma- 
rius was  the  uncle  of  Caesar,  he  was  the  popular  leader  in  his 
day ;  the  leader  of  that  populace  of  Rome  which  Ca3sar  afterwards 
manipulated  though  with  far  more  adroitness  and  success.  But 
the  delineations  of  these  minor  characters  in  Mr.  Froude's  picture 
of  the  Roman  revolution  are  only  foreshadowings  of  the  boldly 
drawn  sketch  of  the  chief  actor  in  that  great  event,  of  the  cen- 
tral figure  of  his  artistic  work ;  the  ideas  which  we  see  there  only 
in  germ  and  bud  reach  at  length  their  "  top  and  blossom  "  in  his 
brilliant  panegyric  of  the  imperial  character  and  career  of  Ju- 


FROUDE'S  CJESAR.  469 

lius  Caesar.  It  is  very  strange  to  note  the  change  of  sentiment 
in  recent  times  concerning  the  last  defenders  of  the  Roman  repub- 
lic and  the  triumphant  founder  of  the  empire.  The  time  was, 
and  not  so  long  ago,  when  the  conspirators  of  the  Ides  of  March 
were  extolled  to  the  skies  as  brave  men  and  true  patriots,  and 
their  victim,  surprised  in  the  senate  house  and  stabbed  to  death  by 
three  and  twenty  valiant  daggers,  was  deemed  to  have  met  the 
deserved  fate  of  a  usurper  and  tyrant.. 

But  now  most  enlightened  writers,  and  in  some  cases  men  of 
liberal  sentiments,  instead  of  going  back  with  Shakespeare  to  the 
sentiments  of  Greek  Plutarch,  stop  very  far  on  this  side  to  join 
hands  with  the  Italian  Dante,  and  vie  with  him  and  with  one  an- 
other in  consigning  Brutus  and  his  friends  to  a  select  place  in  the 
lowest  round  of  the  Inferno,  while  with  like  emulation  they  lift 
Caesar  not  only  to  the  highest  pitch  of  human  greatness  and  good- 
ness, but  even  to  divine  rank  and  honor.  It  may  be  that  this 
great  change  of  sentiment,  the  extreme  of  which,  I  confess,  I  have 
just  given,  is  due  in  part,  and  in  its  best  part,  to  an  improved 
historical  criticism,  which  has  caused  a  more  discriminating  treat- 
ment of  the  facts  long  known,  and  a  more  enlightened  judgment. 
But  for  the  most  part  it  seems  to  have  come  from  the  rise  of  im- 
perialism, especially  in  Germany,  or  from  modern  Csesarism  in 
France,  or  through  tendencies  philosophical  or  scientific,  or  the 
prevalence  of  material  interests,  from  the  worship  of  genius  or  of 
force,  or  of  mere  success,  apart  from  all  moral  considerations. 
Not  unfairly  has  the  French  writer,  M.  Boissier,  said  of  Mr. 
Mommsen  that, "  carrying  into  his  studies  of  antiquity  all  his  mod- 
ern prejudices,  he  assails  in  the  Roman  aristocracy  the  aspiring- 
nobility  of  Prussia,  and  salutes  in  advance,  in  Caesar,  the  popular 
despot  whose  strong  hand  gives  Germany  its  fantastic  unity." 
And  an  English  critic  says  of  Boissier's  remark,  "  This  may  be  a 
fair  excuse  for  a  Prussian  Ccesarean,  but  Mr.  Froude,  an  Eng- 
lishman who  has  made  English  history  the  study  of  his  life  — 
'  What  business  has  he  on  this  galley  ? '  "  But  whatever  the  ori- 
gin of  this  historical  school,  Mr.  Froude  belongs  to  it,  and  gener- 
ally second  to  its  chief,  and  at  no  long  interval ;  and  sometimes 
leaping  forward  in  advance  of  him.  All  will  agree  with  Mr. 
Froude  in  his  exalted  estimate  of  the  genius  and  various  accom- 
plishments of  Caesar.  As  a  scholar,  a  writer,  an  orator,  he  was 
preeminent  among  his  fellows.  In  a  nation  born  to  command  — 
in  a  national  senate  called  by  an  enemy  of  Rome  "  an  assembly 


470  FROUDE'S  CAESAR. 

of  kings,"  he  was  gifted  above  all  others  with  the  kingly  nature. 
He  not  only  impressed  men's  minds  by  his  greatness,  but  he  could 
easily  win  men's  hearts,  and  yet  more  the  hearts  of  women,  by  the 
charm  of  his  person  and  conversation,  the  kindliness  of  his  dispo- 
sition, and  the  courtesy  and  grace  of  his  manners.  He  conquered 
all  enemies  in  war  —  many  of  them  he  conquered  over  again  by 
his  clemency  in  peace.  He  founded  the  Roman  Empire,  and  he 
reigned  over  it  supreme.  But  all  this,  though  multiplied  an  hun- 
dredfold, can  nowise  justify  these  Caesarean  writers  in  importing 
into  modern  thought  the  pagan  conception  of  deification,  and  even 
a  worse  one  than  that  expressed  by  the  Roman  epithet  of  Divus 
Julius.  Mr.  Mommsen  vindicates  Caesar's  aspiring,  not  only  to 
the  divine  right  of  king,  but  even  to  the  kingly  right  of  deity.  In 
very  Teutonic  manner  he  puts  it  in  this  wise :  "  Since  the  princi- 
ple of  the  monarchy  leads  by  logical  sequence  from  its  religious 
side  to  the  king -god,  we  must  recognize  in  Caesar's  procedure  that 
thoroughness  of  thought  and  action  which  always  assures  for  him 
his  unique  station  in  history."  The  late  emperor  of  the  French, 
in  his  biography  of  Caesar,  written  all  in  the  interests  of  French 
Ccesarism,  declared  that  the  men  of  Caesar's  time  who  combated 
his  imperial  claims  were  as  blind  and  culpable  as  the  Jews  in 
crucifying  their  Messiah.  Mr.  Froude,  while  he  nowhere  gives 
utterance  to  just  these  ideas,  yet  with  his  insidious  rhetoric  insin- 
uates similar  ones,  in  forms  no  less  offensive,  and  in  his  closing 
sentence,  as  though  it  were  the  culminating  lesson  of  his  theme, 
institutes  a  parallel  between  the  life  of  Caesar  and  the  life  of 
Jesus.  As  he  approaches,  in  his  narrative,  the  event  of  the  Ides 
of  March,  he  says :  "  The  same  evening,  the  14th  of  March,  Caesar 
was  at  a  '  Last  Supper '  at  the  house  of  Lepidus,"  —  those  words 
written  with  capitals  and  in  quotation  marks.  On  the  next  page 
he  continues :  "  This  familiar  friend  whom  he  trusted  —  the  coin- 
cidence is  striking  —  was  employed  to  betray  him."  Next  we  find 
it  written,  after  the  assassination,  "  Caesar  was  dead.  But  Caesar 
still  lived.  '  It  was  not  possible  that  the  grave  should  hold  him.'  " 
And  finally,  he  ventures  upon  what  he  truly  calls  a  "  strange  and 
startling  resemblance  between  the  fate  of  the  founder  of  the  king- 
dom of  this  world  and  the  Founder  of  the  kingdom  not  of  this 
world,  for  which  the  first  was  a  preparation.  Each  was  denounced 
for  making  himself  a  king ;  each  was  maligned  as  the  friend  of 
publicans  and  sinners ;  each  was  betrayed  by  those  whom  he  had 
loved  and  cared  for ;  each  was  put  to  death ;  and  Caesar  also  was 


FROUDE'S   CAESAR.  471 

believed  to  have  risen  again,  and  ascended  into  heaven,  and  be- 
come a  divine  being."  To  dwell  upon  this  passage  were  alike 
painful  and  needless.  To  speak  of  the  founding  of  the  Roman 
Empire  as  a  great  event,  intended  and  employed  by  Providence 
by  its  extent  and  its  unity  to  be  preparatory  and  subsidiary  to  the 
extension  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  is  to  utter  a  truth  which  is 
often  illustrated  and  worthy  of  constant  remembrance ;  but  such 
a  parallel  of  personal  history  as  Mr.  Froude  has  thus  started  is 
repulsive  to  reason  no  less  than  to  religion.  One  cannot  compre- 
hend how  Mr.  Froude  could  have  written  these  words,  when  in 
the  same  chapter  he  had  described,  in  language  I  do  not  care  to 
quote,  the  extreme  immorality  of  Caesar,  and  only  adding  the  very 
pale  defense  :  "  That  Caesar's  morality  was  altogether  superior  to 
that  of  the  average  of  his  contemporaries  is  in  a  high  degree  im- 
probable." What  a  contrast  have  we  to  this  in  those  stern  but 
just  words  of  Dr.  Arnold,  of  only  a  generation  ago,  "  If,  from  the 
intellectual,  we  turn  to  the  moral  character  of  Caesar,  the  whole 
range  of  history  can  hardly  furnish  a  picture  of  greater  de- 
formity "  ! 

Quite  apart  from  such  gross  exaggerations  as  these,  Mr.  Froude's 
excessive  admiration  of  Caesar's  genius  and  work  blinds  him,  in  his 
otherwise  admirably  clear  view  of  Roman  affairs,  to  the  considera- 
tion of  any  elements  or  influences  in  the  times  unfavorable  to  his 
hero's  claims  to  political  and  moral  supremacy.  His  readers  will 
agree  with  him  that  all  things  in  the  Roman  state,  during  that 
period  of  about  eighty  years,  were  tending  to  the  necessity  of  the 
empire,  and  that  if  the  empire  must  needs  come,  Caesar  was  pre- 
eminently fitted  for  the  imperial  place.  Three  times  in  that  period 
had  the  effort  been  made  to  restore  the  old  regime  of  the  republic 
under  which  Rome  had  won  her  robust  internal  strength  and  her 
broad  external  dominion :  twice  in  the  interests  of  its  popular  ele- 
ment, the  first  time  by  the  Gracchi,  and  the  second  by  Marius, 
and  once,  in  the  interests  of  the  aristocracy,  by  Sulla.  But  these 
efforts  had  each  in  its  turn  signally  and  utterly  failed  of  any  abid- 
ing success ;  each  time  had  Rome,  though  set  upright  for  a  while 
from  the  one  side  or  the  other,  fallen  back  and  down  again  into 
internal  disorder  and  violence.  The  integrity  of  that  grand  unit 
of  government  of  the  olden  time,  the  Senatus  populusque  Roma- 
nus  seemed  to  have  been  sundered  fatally  into  fractions,  and  either 
half  to  have  lost  its  wonted  healthy  capacity  to  exercise  its  great 
functions.  The  very  greatness  of  Roman  dominion  had  been  im- 


472  FROUDE'S  CJSSAR. 

pairing,  by  its  enormous  .temptations  to  corruption,  that  greatness 
of  Roman  character,  which,  especially  in  the  wisdom  and  patriot- 
ism of  the  senate,  had  brought  it  into  being ;  and  the  people,  who 
had  breathed  in  the  corrupting  atmosphere  which  settled  down 
upon  them  from  their  superiors,  were  fast  becoming  a  rabble  of 
the  comitia  as  well  as  of  the  streets. 

After  Marius  and  Sulla  it  was  growing  ever  clearer  that  all 
orders  must  erelong  succumb  to  the  sway  of  a  military  mon- 
archy, and  the  quick  coming  contest  between  Pompeius  and 
Caesar  pointed  surely  to  the  ascendency  of  Caesar.  Pompeius, 
during  the  most  brilliant  and  every  way  best  part  of  his  career, 
aimed  at  the  union  of  supreme  power  with  loyalty  to  the  laws 
and  constitution  of  his  country.  This  is  as  evident  now  as  it  was 
then,  by  his  procedure  on  his  return  home  after  his  five  years' 
extraordinary  achievements  in  the  East,  where  he  had  secured  the 
Roman  supremacy  in  Pontus,  Armenia,  Syria,  and  Palestine. 
As  he  was  on  his  way  home  and  was  nearing  Italy,  his  coming 
was  looked  to  with  ominous  apprehensions  by  all  parties,  as  if  he 
might  reenact  the  part  of  Sulla.  He  was  in  reality  the  successor 
of  Sulla  in  the  full  possession  of  military  sovereignty,  at  the  head 
of  a  victorious  army,  despotic  power  within  his  easy  grasp.  But 
he  no  sooner  touched  Italian  soil  at  Brundusium  than  he  dis- 
banded his  army,  and  though  his  journey  through  Italy  was  one 
continuous  ovation,  yet  he  entered  the  gates  of  Rome  —  and  it 
happened  to  be  on  his  birthday  —  surrounded  only  by  toga-clad 
citizens,  and  only  to  claim  and  enjoy  a  well-earned  triumph  as  a 
citizen  general.  What  would  Caesar  have  done  at  such  a  moment? 
Mr.  Froude  does  not  touch  this  comparison,  but  Mr.  Mommsen, 
in  his  worship  of  force  and  his  indifference  to  right,  sneers  at 
Pompeius'  conduct  in  missing  his  opportunity  and  ascribes  it  to  a 
lack  of  courage.  He  says :  "On  those  who  lack  courage  the  gods 
lavish  every  favor  and  every  gift  in  vain.  The  parties  breathed 
freely.  Pompeius  had  abdicated  a  second  time ;  his  already  van- 
quished competitors  might  once  more  begin  the  race,  in  which  the 
strangest  thing  was  that  Pompeius  was  again  a  rival  runner." 
But  the  truth  is  that  Pompeius  was  not  yet  a  "  rival  runner  "  at 
all,  if  it  is  meant  by  that  that  he  was  already  a  rival  with  Caesar 
for  absolute  power.  Up  to  this  time,  though  fond  as  a  soldier  of 
military  power  and  military  honor,  he  had  no  thought  of  reaching 
it  by  unlawful  means ;  he  had  not  despaired  of  the  republic,  and, 
what  was  even  more,  he  had  not  despaired  of  himself.  This 


FROUDE'S   C^SAR.  473 

double  despairing  came  only  to  Pompeius  by  his  coming  into  nearer 
contact  with  Caesar,  when,  in  a  weak  moment  of  disappointment 
and  mortification  at  the  refusal  of  the  senate  to  ratify  his  acts 
in  Asia,  he  yielded  to  Caesar's  insidious  offers,  and  entered  into 
the  triumvirate  with  Caesar  and  Crassus.  This  coalition  was  a 
private  bargain  between  the  three  leading  men  of  the  state  for  the 
promotion  by  each  of  his  own  selfish  ends  by  the  aid  of  his  part- 
ners. They  pledged  each  other  to  put  into  a  common  stock  their 
influence  and  resources,  and  to  do  and  say  nothing  in  politics 
except  for  the  combined  interests  of  the  league,  or,  in  modern 
phrase,  the  "  ring."  Pompeius  was  to  get  from  the  people  all  that 
the  senate  denied  him ;  Crassus  was  to  have  consideration  at 
home  for  himself  and  for  the  moneyed  interests  of  the  equites  ;  and 
Caesar  was  to  have  the  consulship  and  then  the  province  of  Gaul. 
Caesar's  share  in  the  bargain  came  first  and  directly;  and  it 
proved  to  be  the  lion's  share.  He  won  popular  favor  in  the  con- 
sulship, and  then  military  glory  in  Gaul,  by  the  side  of  which 
Pompeius'  fame  and  popularity  paled  and  waned.  This  connection 
was  in  every  way  mischievous  to  Pompeius ;  it  led  to  all  the  after 
misfortunes  and  faults  of  his  life,  involving  him  in  "  difficulty, 
mortification,  and  shame."  He  found  himself  severed  from  his 
old  friends ;  he  saw,  as  Caesar's  plans  matured,  that  he  was  lifting 
to  greater  influence  a  dangerous  rival,  and  helping  that  rival  cre- 
ate a  power  which  periled  the  life  of  the  republic ;  and,  what  was 
worse,  he  felt  in  him  the  risings  of  envy  and  jealousy  and  open 
ambition  he  had  not  had  before ;  for,  as  Lucan  truly  said,  "  Caesar 
could  not  brook  a  superior,  nor  Pompeius  an  equal."  The  connec- 
tion soon  fell  apart,  for  it  had  110  moral  cohesion,  and  Pompeius 
went  back  to  the  constitutional  party,  and  again  became  the 
champion  of  its  interests.  Then  came  the  inevitable  break  be- 
tween Caesar  and  the  government.  Inevitable,  too,  the  appeal 
to  arms  in  the  civil  war,  and  that  once  begun,  the  course  of 
events  goes  straight  and  swift,  with  but  the  single  brief  reverse 
at  Dyrrachium,  to  Caesar's  victory  at  Pharsalia  and  himself  the 
undisputed  military  master  of  Rome.  Mr.  Froude's  view  of  this 
decisive  contest,  though  strongly  and  on  some  points  fairly  put, 
yet  is  too  Caesarean  for  full  acceptance  for  readers  who  are  not 
themselves  disciples  of  his  school.  He  well  tells  us  here  that  the 
senate  undertook  this  war  to  evade  the  reforms  which  were  in- 
tended by  Caesar  if  he  reached  his  second  consulship,  and  that 
consul,  of  course,  he  must  be  if  he  comes  home  from  his  prov- 


474  FROUDE'S   CJiSAR. 

ince.  It  might  be  enough,  however,  to  say  that  nobody  could 
know  before  the  event  what  reforms  he  intended  or  whether  he 
intended  any  at  all,  and  that  if  he  must  be  consul  it  must  be  by 
votes  of  citizens  and  not  by  the  sword.  On  the  other  hand,  Caesar 
coidd  urge  that  the  senate  had  wronged  him  by  recalling  him 
before  his  term  had  expired,  and  by  ordering  him  "to  disband  his 
army  by  a  certain  day,  on  pain  of  being  declared  a  public  enemy ;  " 
and  still  further  by  carrying  their  order  in  opposition  to  the  veto 
of  the  tribunes.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  lawful  govern- 
ment had  not  in  this  crisis  of  affairs  itself  kept  the  law,  while  it 
was  the  irregular  ambition  of  Caesar  which  had  produced  the  crisis. 
The  senate  had  acted  from  a  well-grounded  fear  of  Caesar's  ambi- 
tious plans  for  his  own  elevation  and  greater  power  in  the  state  ; 
their  decree  was  a  virtual  declaration  of  martial  law :  "  that  the 
consuls  should  provide  for  the  safety  of  the  state."  But  if  we  can 
waive  all  constitutional  questions  and  look  to  the  issue  itself  of  this 
war  in  its  bearings  upon  Rome  and  the  world,  we  certainly  cannot 
assert  that  "  the  safety  of  the  state  "  would  have  been  secured  if, 
to  reverse  Lucan's  memorable  line,  Cato's  had  been  the  winning 
and  Caesar's  the  losing  cause  on  the  plains  of  Pharsalia.  Cicero, 
in  his  letters  of  this  time,  "  speaks  in  the  strongest  terms  of  cen- 
sure of  the  severities  which  would  have  followed  the  victory  of  the 
Constitutionalists,  and  declares  that  they  would  have  ordered  a 
general  proscription  as  unsparing  as  that  of  Sulla."  He  is  filled 
with  horror  at  the  uncompromising  and  revengeful  spirit  which 
he  finds  in  Pompeius  himself,  and  at  the  language  he  hears  all 
about  him  in  the  Pompeian  camp,  of  retribution  to  be  visited  to 
the  utmost  upon  Caesar's  rebellious  soldiers  and  their  partisans  in 
the  state.  The  Pompeian  army  was  not  all  composed  of  Ciceros 
and  Catos,  and  the  ascendency  of  the  profligate  and  corrupt  wing 
of  the  aristocracy  might  have  been  far  worse  for  the  world  than 
the  victory  of  Caesar  and  the  establishment  of  his  despotic  rule. 
In  this  view  of  the  subject  Mr.  Froude  and  his  friends  may  well 
point  us  to  the  clemency  of  Caesar  to  his  opponents.  This  is  in- 
deed a  noble  feature  in  his  policy,  and,  we  may  perhaps  believe, 
also  in  his  character.  But  the  most  difficult  article  of  acceptance 
in  all  Mr.  Froude's  Caesarean  creed  is,  that  Caesar  aimed  to  be  a 
reformer  of  the  Roman  constitution  and  a  benefactor  of  mankind. 
That  it  was  possible  to  restore  the  old  institutions  and  usages  of 
the  republic,  to  renew  the  dignity  and  manly  wisdom  and  patriot- 
ism of  the  senate,  and  infuse  a  new  and  healthy  vigor  into  the 


FROUDE'S   CAESAR.  475 

people,  it  is  not  necessary  to  assert.  But  it  is  certain  that  Ca3sar 
never  made  any  trial  if  it  were  possible.  He  simply  appropriated 
to  himself  all  the  powers  and  functions  of  government,  aristocratic 
and  popular  alike,  secular  and  sacred.  So  far  from  elevating  the 
senate,  he  deliberately  degraded  it.  With  the  purpose  of  putting 
into  it  new  elements  and  widening  its  basis  of  influence,  he  raised 
the  number  of  senators  to  nine  hundred,  introducing  to  its  time- 
honored  benches  freedmen  and  foreigners,  and  among  them  his 
barbarian  Gauls.  The  wits  of  the  town  made  themselves  merry 
over  these  upstart  senators,  who  could  hardly  find  their  way  about 
the  city,  and  fairly  lost  themselves  in  the  wilderness  of  columns  and 
statues  about  the  Forum ;  and  placards  were  stuck  up  all  around, 
proposing  that  no. citizen  should  show  these  egregiously  new  men 
the  way  to  the  senate-house.  What  Ca3sar  wished  and  what  he 
meant  and  what  he  secured  was  first  revolution,  then  a  military 
monarchy,  and  himself  the  head  of  it.  We  may  allow  that  a  man 
of  his  commanding  genius,  conscious  of  his  superiority,  might  needs 
follow  the  instinct  of  his  nature  and  ppssess  himself  of  supreme 
power  when  it  was  within  his  grasp.  It  may  be,  too,  that  such 
a  rule  coincided  with  the  interests  of  Rome  and  the  world,  that 
the  sway  of  one  man  was  at  that  crisis  the  best  thing  for  man- 
kind ;  in  this  sense  we  might  accept  Lucan's  famous  words,  quoted 
and  appropriated  by  Mr.  Froude :  "  Victrix  causa  dels  placuit" 
At  any  rate,  we  can  allow  that  it  pleased  Heaven  that  Cesar's 
should  be  the  victorious  cause ;  but  yet  for  all  this  we  cannot 
admit  that  the  victor  vindicated  for  himself  a  place  among  those 
choice  spirits  who  have  lived  not  for  themselves,  but  for  the 
human  race.  No ;  we  must  hold  that  the  career  of  Caesar  was  a 
selfish  one ;  his  ruling  passion  and  motive  was  ambition,  and 
ambition  of  a  like  quality  and  proportion  with  his  unique  faculty 
of  command.  And  it  was  this  —  not  his  administration,  not  his 
so-called  reforms,  as  Mr.  Froude  declares,  not  his  victories,  not  his 
rule  in  itself,  —  it  was  his  despotic  use  of  his  victories  and  handling 
of  his  rule,  it  was  his  purpose  to  make  himself  a  king  in  name  as 
in  thing  that  brought  him  to  his  tragic  end.  I  believe  that  Shake- 
speare had  the  true  insight  into  his  great  subject,  though  on  his 
genius  had  never  dawned  the  new  lights  of  our  modern  Caesa- 
reans ;  he  saw  and  read  all  aright,  where  he  makes  Brutus  say : 
"  Tears  for  his  love,  joy  for  his  fortune,  honour  for  his  valour,  and 
death  for  his  ambition."  With  a  more  dazzling  rhetoric  than 
even  that  of  Shakespeare's  Mark  Antony,  Mr.  Froude  may  say :  — 


476  FROUDE'S  C^SAR. 

"  The  noble  Brutus 

Hath  told  you  Ctesar  was  ambitious  — 
You  all  did  see  that  on  the  Lupercal 
I  thrice  presented  him  a  kingly  crown 
Which  he  did  thrice  refuse.     Was  this  ambition  ?  " 

but  we  remember  and  believe  the  rather  the  plain  prose  of  "  honest 
Casca,"  himself  also  a  witness  of  what  he  tells :  "  I  saw  Mark  An- 
tony offer  him  a  crown  ;  and  he  put  it  by  once ;  but  for  all  that, 
to  my  thinking,  he  would  fain  have  had  it.  Then  he  offered  it  to 
him  again  ;  then  he  put  it  by  again  ;  but  to  my  thinking,  he  was 
very  loath  to  lay  his  fingers  off  it"  The  great  dramatist  there 
reads  out  what  lay  in  the  inmost  heart  of  the  best  thought  of  the 
last  generation  of  republican  Romans.  They  could  not  bear  des- 
potic rule ;  the  name  and  state  of  a  king  was  hateful  and  intolera- 
ble ;  it  was  to  them  not  only  un-Roman  by  the  cherished  traditions 
and  sentiments  of  many  generations,  but  it  was  illegal,  for  a  Roman 
law  declared  accursed  and  devoted  the  life  of  any  man  who  should 
attempt  to  make  himself  a  king.  A  dictator  they  could  bear,  — 
they  were  bearing,  —  but  kingship  never,  for  it  meant  for  them  the 
degradation  of  personal  and  civil  servitude.  Whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  perverse  folly  and  ingratitude  of  Caesar's  assassina- 
tion, it  was  just  as  much  a  necessity  of  the  times  from  the  one  side, 
as  was  from  the  other  the  empire  itself.  Shakespeare,  following 
Plutarch,  makes  Brutus  say,  "  As  he  was  ambitious  I  slew  him." 
Cicero  said  with  equal  truth,  "  It  was  Antonius  who  slew  him  on 
the  day  of  the  Lupercalia,  by  offering  him  the  crown,  and  letting 
everybody  see  that  even  in  his  refusal  he  meant  to  have  it."  A 
word  of  Plutarch  lets  us  into  a  view  of  the  sentiments  of  Brutus 
and  his  party.  Ligarius  was  one  who  had  been  pardoned  by 
Caesar  for  having  been  in  arms  against  him  at  Pharsalia  in  Af- 
rica; he  had  been  reproached  for  want  of  gratitude.  Plutarch 
says  that  Ligarius  did  not  so  much  feel  grateful,  as  'oppressed  by 
that  power  that  made  him  need  to  be  pardoned.  But  there  is  a 
passage  in  Cicero  (Epp.  ad  Att.  XV.  4.)  which,  while  it  shows 
the  marvelous  revelations  he  makes  of  himself  to  Atticus,  and 
also  the  egregious  political  error  of  the  assassination,  yet  also 
gives  a  truly  awful  illustration  of  the  deep-seated  hate  even  in  a 
man  of  so  much  moderation.  He  is  writing  of  the  doings  of  An- 
tonius as  worse  far  than  Caesar's,  and  breaks  out  thus:  "If 
things  run  on  thus,  I  like  not  the  Ides  of  March.  For  either 
Caesar  should  never  have  come  back  (after  death),  nor  fear  have 


FROUDE'S   CAESAR.  477 

compelled  us  to  ratify  his  acts ;  or  else,  so  was  I  in  favor  with 
him  —  and  yet  may  heaven's  curse  light  on  him  though  dead 
(quern  dii  mortuum  p&rduinf)  —  that  seeing  the  master  is  slain 
and  we  are  not  freer,  he  was  a  master  not  to  be  rejected."  And 
then,  as  if  in  affright  and  shame  at  himself,  he  adds :  "  I  blush, 
believe  me,  but  I  have  written  it,  and  will  not  blot  it  out."  Let 
us  remember,  too,  so  wide  and  real  was  this  feeling  of  oppression, 
that  after  Caesar  was  slain  some  of  the  best  of  his  party  at  once 
came  over  to  the  republican  party  and  now  gave  utterance  to  the 
feelings  they  had  kept  stifled  within  them.  There  were  among  them 
such  men  as  Hirtius  and  Pansa,  and  Servilius,  and  Servius  Sulpi- 
cius,  and  also  Asinius  Pollio,  who  had  been  close  attached  to  the 
person  of  Caesar.  Very  striking  are  the  words  of  Sulpicius,  writ- 
ten to  Cicero,  and  written,  too,  in  consolation,  when  Cicero  had  just 
lost  his  daughter :  "  We  have  seen,"  he  says,  "  snatched  from 
us  those  things  which  men  should  hold  less  dear  than  their 
children,  —  our  country,  our  reputation,  our  dignity,  everything 
which  made  life  honorable.  What  can  one  blow  more  add  to 
our  pain  ?  "  And  we  might  trace  the  remains  of  these  sentiments 
far  down  into  the  empire,  through  the  reigns  of  Augustus  and 
Tiberius,  in  the  lives  of  such  men  as  Drusus  and  Germanicus,  and 
others  less  known  to  fame,  and  discover  how  the  republic  lingered 
as  a  memory  and  a  power  long  after  itself  was  extinct.  I  have 
not  time  to  discuss  with  any  fullness  Mr.  Froude's  delineation 
of  other  secondary  characters  to  which  allusion  has  been  made 
in  the  course  of  this  review  of  his  book.  But  let  me  before  I 
close  my  paper  make  some  remarks  suggested  by  his  treatment  of 
Cicero.  It  is  with  a  real  delight  that  we  see  Mr.  Froude  here 
following  Mommsen  only  afar  off.  The  extreme  and  quite  un- 
principled depreciation  of  the  Roman  orator's  fame  by  Mommsen 
is  a  misfortune  only  paralleled  by  that  earlier  one  of  excessive 
adulation  which  it  suffered  from  his  biographer,  Middleton.  The 
German  historian  denies  Cicero  excellence  of  any  kind,  political, 
forensic,  or  even  literary. 

But  such  a  judgment  only  damages  the  judge  himself.  Every- 
body knows  that  in  a  time  remarkable  for  men  of  great  ability 
Cicero  rose  to  eminence  by  his  talents,  his  various  discipline  and 
culture,  and  his  eloquence.  It  is  a  plain  verdict  of  fact  that  Cae- 
sar himself  at  every  stage  of  his  career  studiously  sought  to  win 
and  secure  his  influence,  and  that  in  this  Caesar  was  only  the  high- 
est illustration  of  what  was  sought  by  every  great  party  leader. 


478  FROUDE'S   CAESAR. 

And  as  to  his  great  merits  as  a  scholar  and  a  writer,  which  have 
been  acknowledged  in  eveiy  civilized  country  since  he  ran  his  bril- 
liant career,  it  seems  a  treason  against  the  republic  of  letters  for 
Professor  Mommsen  to  deny  them,  who  has  himself  reached  an 
eminent  literary  position,  and  who  derives  his  sole  claim  to  the 
world's  notice  from  his  learning  and  scholarship.  Cicero's  weak- 
nesses are  all  obvious  enough,  and  every  one  admits  them ;  but  the 
truth  is,  they  would  never  have  been  known  and  talked  about  ex- 
cept from  his  conspicuous  abilities  and  virtues.  It  is  refreshing 
and  reassuring  in  these  times  to  hear  Mr.  Froude  declare  that, 
after  Csesar,  "  Cicero  is  the  second  great  figure  in  the  history  of 
the  times,"  that  his  "  splendid  talents  have  bought  forgiveness  for 
his  faults,  and  have  given  him  a  place  in  the  small  circle  of  the 
really  great  whose  memory  is  not  allowed  to  die,"  and  "that  his 
literary  excellence  will  forever  preserve  his  memory  from  too  harsh 
judgment."  But  of  course  Mr.  Froude,  from  his  point  of  view, 
condemns  Cicero  because  he  refused  to  be  of  Caesar's  party,  to 
plant  himself  by  Caesar's  side,  which  he  says  was  "his  natural 
place."  He  ascribes  this  refusal  to  Cicero's  "  want  of  political  prin- 
ciple," and  also  to  his  vanity,  that  having  had  "  the  first  part  as 
consul,"  he  "  could  not  bring  himself  to  play  a  second  part."  But 
it  is  certain  that  vanity  had  nothing  to  do  with  Cicero's  refusal  to 
go  with  Caesar.  He  was  certainly  willing  to  "  play  "  a  second  part 
to  Pompey  —  why  not  to  Caesar  ?  It  was  exactly  his  political  prin- 
ciple which  kept  him  apart  from  Caesar.  As  to  the  first  part  in 
Rome,  he  did  not  believe  in  it  at  all  in  the  sense  in  which  Mr. 
Froude  takes  it.  He  believed,  with  all  the  strength  of  deliberate, 
honest  conviction,  in  a  Rome  where  nobody  could  play  the  first 
part  except  in  loyalty  to  law  and  liberty,  and  where  everybody 
could  play  just  that  part  to  which  he  was  entitled  by  his  own  in- 
trinsic merits.  There  was  no  man  of  any  prominence  in  Roman 
affairs  whose  political  principles  were  more  pronounced  than  Cice- 
ro's, or  more  consistently  maintained.  He  laid  them  down  in  the- 
ory in  his  writings,  and  he  defended  them  by  his  tongue  and  his 
life.  He  believed  in  the  mixed  constitutional  government/  of  con- 
sul, senate,  and  comitia,  which  Rome  had  not  so  much  formed  by 
written  compact  as  reached  by  experience,  in  the  early,  long-con- 
tinued struggles  of  the  different  orders  in  the  state,  which  gradu- 
ally came  into  fusion  and  union  by  concession  and  compromise, 
and  so  agreed  upon  a  practical  constitution  for  all,  and  which,  with 
its  Imperfections,  was  yet  the  best  and  the  most  permanent  one 


FROUDE'S   CAESAR.  479 

the  ancient  world  possessed.  We  may  say  now  that  such  a  regime 
belonged  only  to  the  past,  that  it  was  too  good  for  the  bad  times 
in  which  Cicero  lived.  That  is  probably  true,  but  it  was  to  the 
honor  of  Cicero  that  he  cherished  its  recollections,  and  clung  to 
the  possibility  of  its  reconstruction,  and  would  go  with  no  man, 
with  no  set  of  men,  who  were  trying  to  make  such  a  reconstruc- 
tion impossible.  In  his  youth  he  looked  with  horror  at  the  recent 
wild  excesses  of  the  democracy  under  Marius,  and  then,  on  his 
very  entrance  into  public  life,  on  the  yet  wilder  excesses  of  the 
aristocracy  under  Sulla.  It  is  his  adhesion  to  these  political  views 
that  alone  explains  Cicero's  entire  course  through  the  great  con- 
flict between  Pompeius  and  Caesar.  At  first  he  was  pronounced  for 
Pompey,  because  he  was  then  a  pronounced  republican.  When 
he  joined  Ca3sar  in  the  triumvirate,  Cicero  lost  confidence  in  him. 
When  he  broke  with  Caesar,  and  came  back  to  the  constitutional 
party,  Cicero  stood  by  him  again,  but  yet  with  mistrust  and  ap- 
prehension. When  the  crisis  of  civil  war  came,  and  while  it  was 
coming,  he  was  in  sore  perplexity  (Mr.  Froude  calls  it  vacillation) 
between  his  conviction  that  Caesar  was  wrong  and  his  fear  that 
Pompeius  was  not  right.  It  was  really  the  perplexity  of  an  honest 
man  who  wanted  and  meant  to  do  only  what  he  thought  to  be 
right.  As  his  letters  to  Atticus  show,  he  was  indeed  in  a  pitiable 
condition.  He  saw  good  reason  to  believe  that  Caesar  would  use 
victory  with  the  more  moderation,  and  that  inclined  him  to  him 
and  his  camp.  And  yet  he  was  ill  at  ease  in  the  Pompeian  camp 
on  account  of  the  revengeful  spirit  which  reigned  there ;  for  his 
own  remonstrances,  indeed,  and  his  expressed  aversion  to  joining 
the  Pompeian  army  at  all,  he  narrowly  escaped  being  killed  by 
young  Pompeius  and  his  friends,  who  called  him  a  traitor ;  and 
finally,  though  he  believed  that  the  cause  of  Pompeius  was  more 
nearly  in  the  right,  he  left  the  camp  at  Dyrrachium  and  went  back 
to  Italy. 

After  Pharsalia,  Cicero  submitted  to  the  inevitable  with  as  good 
grace  as  he  could  command.  Though  treated  with  marked  cour- 
tesy, yet  he  kept  aloof  for  some  time  from  public  life,  and  in  re- 
tirement found  at  once  occupation  and  solace  in  his  favorite  liter- 
ary studies.  Yet  he  seems  to  have  been  not  without  something  of 
hope,  that  if  Caesar  did  not  restore  "  some  kind  of  a  free  state," 
yet  he  might  perhaps  make  it  possible,  by  his  administration,  for 
public  men  to  pursue  a  dignified  and  honorable  career.  In  a  let- 
ter to  one  of  his  friends  he  says,  "  Supposing  Ca3sar  to  desire  the 


480  FROUDE'S   C^SAR. 

existence  of  a  free  state,  he  may  yet  lack  the  power  to  create  it." 
But  such  a  hope  was  especially  awakened  by  Caesar's  pardon  of 
Marcellus,  and  was  then  expressed  by  the  speech  with  which  he 
broke  his  long  silence  in  the  senate,  of  thanks  to  the  dictator  for 
this  signal  act  of  grace.  Marked  as  this  speech  is  by  dazzling 
compliments,  set  in  courtliest  Latin,  it  yet  contains  some  free  ut- 
terances worthy  of  Roman  manhood.  Addressing  Caesar,  he  says, 
"  We  read  in  your  face  a  purpose  to  restore  us  to  such  remnants 
of  liberty  as  have  survived  the  war."  And  in  another  passage : 
"  I  grieve  that  the  commonwealth,  which  ought  to  be  immortal, 
should  hang  on  the  breath  of  one  man."  And  yet  more  plainly  he 
continues :  "  Should  you  leave  the  republic  in  the  condition  in 
which  it  now  stands,  consider,  I  pray  you,  whether  your  career 
will  not  seem  famous  indeed,  but  scarcely  glorious.  It  remains 
for  you  to  rebuild  the  constitution.  Live  till  this  is  done."  De- 
livered as  this  speech  was,  on  the  grateful  impulse  of  the  moment, 
as  we  know  from  a  letter  of  Cicero  (Ad  Div.  IV.  4),  it  shows  that 
his  tongue  had  not,  by  the  silence  of  nearly  two  years,  forgotten  its 
eloquence.  Let  me  now  touch  finally  upon  that  last  memorable 
year  of  Cicero's  life,  the  one  which  followed  the  murder  of  Caesar. 
There,  certainly,  in  the  contest  with  Antonius  and  the  newly 
formed  Caesarean  party,  he  showed  no  vacillation,  no  weakness, 
no  lack  of  courage,  and  there,  too,  appeared  his  old  devotion  to 
his  political  convictions.  He  had  left  Rome,  intending  to  join 
Atticus  in  Greece ;  but  an  ill  wind  drove  him  back  to  Rhegium. 
There  he  met  Brutus,  who  persuaded  him  to  go  back  to  Rome  and 
make  another  effort  for  his  country.  He  reached  Rome  on  the 
last  day  of  August,  44.  On  the  next  day  the  senate  were  to  meet 
at  the  consular  summons  of  Antonius.  Cicero  did  not  attend,  but 
sent  a  messenger  to  the  consul,  excusing  his  absence.  Antoiiius 
was  enraged  at  his  absence,  and  declared  that  he  would  demolish 
his  house  on  the  Palatine  if  he  stayed  away  from  the  senate.  On 
the  next  day  Cicero  appeared  in  his  place,  but  now  the  consul  was 
himself  absent.  Cicero  rose  to  speak,  the  old  fire  kindling  in  him 
by  the  genius  itself  of  the  place  —  the  Temple  of  Concord,  which 
had  been  the  scene  years  before  of  his  speeches  against  Catiline. 
He  mildly  alluded  to  yesterday's  attack  upon  him  by  Antonius  as 
unjust,  he  wished  the  consul  were  present ;  perhaps  he  was  ill  or 
fatigued  by  his  effort ;  the  senate  would  excuse  him,  though  yes- 
terday Antonius  took  no  such  excuse  himself.  He  thus  glided 
into  his  first  Philippic.  He  arraigned  the  lawless  policy  of  Anto- 


FROUDE'S   CAESAR.  481 

nius  since  the  first  of  June  —  no  consultation  of  the  senate  —  laws 
of  his  own  forced  through  the  comitia  —  his  own  creatures  ap- 
pointed to  office,  and  for  every  new  act  of  tyranny  the  will  of  the 
dead  Caesar  pleaded.  The  attitude  of  Cicero  was  noble.  He  was 
finishing  his  public  life  in  his  age,  just  as  he  began  it  in  early 
manhood,  protesting  alone  against  a  dreaded  power  which  brooked 
no  resistance.  Then  it  was  Sulla,  now  it  was  Antonius  whom  he 
resisted.  Courage  is  contagious.  The  senate  listened  at  first  with 
surprise,  then  passed  swift  to  admiration,  and  finally  broke  forth 
into  well-nigh  continuous  applause  at  the  orator's  telling  words. 
Cicero  followed  up  his  speech  with  action.  He  gathered  about 
him  men  of  moderation  of  all  parties,  telling  them  that  now  there 
was  but  one  ship  for  all  honest  men  to  sail  in.  These  were  joined 
by  some  of  Caesar's  generals,  who  found  that  they  would  lose  less 
in  remaining  citizens  of  a  free  state  than  in  becoming  subjects  of 
Antonius. 

But  though  there  were  chiefs  at  hand,  there  was  a  lack  of  sol- 
diers. Antonius  had  gone  to  Brundusium,  where  he  was  waiting 
for  the  legions  he  had  summoned  from  Macedonia.  Furious  at 
the  unexpected  resistance  he  encountered,  he  threatened  pillage 
and  murder.  People  were  in  terror ;  they  looked  about  for  help. 
Decimus  Brutus  was  with  his  army  in  Gaul,  Sextus  Pompeius  in 
Sicily,  both  of  them  far  off,  while  the  danger  was  nigh.  It  was 
at  this  crisis  that  the  young  Octavius  appeared.  The  jealousy 
of  Antonius  and  the  distrust  of  the  republicans  had  kept  him 
aside ;  but  hitherto  impatiently  biding  his  time,  he  now  judged 
that  time  to  have  come.  He  traversed  Rome  and  its  environs, 
appealing  to  his  uncle's  veterans.  His  name,  his  largesses,  and 
his  promises  brought  many  soldiers  to  his  side.  Then  he  applied 
to  the  chiefs  of  the  senate,  offering  them  and  their  cause  the  sup- 
port of  his  troops.  They  dared  not  refuse  his  aid,  and  Cicero 
himself  was  at  last  won  over  by  the  young  Caesar.  Mr.  Froude, 
when  writing  of  the  affairs  of  two  years  before,  has  an  admirable 
remark  which  explains  the  readiness  which  Octavius  showed  for 
this  crisis,  though  only  a  youth  of  nineteen.  He  says  :  "  In  the 
unrecorded  intercourse  between  the  uncle  [Caesar]  and  his  niece's 
child  lies  the  explanation  of  the  rapidity  with  which  Octavius 
seized  the  reins  when  all  was  chaos."  All  that  followed  this 
coming  of  Octavius  upon  the  scene  is  too  familiar  for  repetition. 
But  during  most  of  this  year  Cicero  was  the  soul  of  the  republi- 
can party.  His  words  and  acts  filled  all  with  energy.  In  the 


482  FROUDE'S   C^SAR. 

Forum  echoed  once  more  the  well-nigh  forgotten  words  of  patriot- 
ism and  freedom.  From  Rome  the  ardor  spread  to  the  municipal 
towns  —  all  Italy  was  stirred.  Cicero  corresponded  with  the  pro- 
consuls in  their  provinces,  with  the  generals  of  the  armies.  He 
urges  Brutus  to  possess  himself  of  Greece,  he  applauds  the  efforts 
of  Cassius  to  master  Asia,  he  excites  Cornificius  to  chase  from 
Africa  the  followers  of  Antonius.  He  gives  heart  to  Decimus 
Brutus  in  his  resistance  at  Mutina.  The  services  he  solicits  come 
in  from  all  sides.  Lepidus  and  Plancus  protest  anew  their  fidel- 
ity to  the  republic.  Even  Asinius  Pollio  writes  him  that  he  is 
an  enemy  of  any  man  who  shall  attempt  to  be  a  king.  Cicero's 
thirteen  Philippics  following  one  another  in  rapid  succession  keep 
the  senate  up  to  their  duty,  and  inform  the  people  of  every  move- 
ment, and,  with  no  time  for  the  orator  to  polish  and  elaborate  his 
speeches,  they  are  circulated  just  as  they  issue  from  his  lips 
throughout  Italy  and  the  provinces,  awakening  everywhere  the 
same  emotion  and  action  as  in  Rome.  From  distant  countries 
even  came  back  to  Cicero  the  testimonies  of  the  admiration  they 
inspire.  "  Your  toga  is  again  more  victorious  than  our  arms," 
says  one  of  his  generals.  "  In  you,"  writes  another,  "  the  ex- 
consul  has  outdone  the  consul."  "  My  soldiers  are  all  with  you," 
writes  a  third.  On  the  day  when  tidings  reached  Rome  of  the 
republican  victory  at  Mutina,  the  people  went  in  a  body  to  Cice- 
ro's house,  and  brought  him  out,  and  marched  him  in  triumph  to 
the  Capitol,  and  then  listened  with  shouts  of  applause  to  his  recital 
of  the  events  of  the  battle.  "That  one  Capitol-day"  writes 
Cicero  to  Brutus,  "  has  paid  me  for  all  my  troubles  in  the  past." 
But  success  is  sometimes  more  fatal  to  a  coalition  than  failure. 
When  the  common  enemy  is  repulsed,  then  the  different  elements 
in  it  assert  themselves  again.  The  sequel  proved  that  the  young 
Octavius  meant  to  weaken  Antonius  and  to  strengthen  the  repub- 
licans, only  through  both  to  reach  his  own  ends.  When  he  saw 
Antonius  defeated  and  fleeing  to  the  Alps,  then  he  joined  friendly 
arms  with  him,  and  the  two  with  their  united  forces  marched  on 
Rome.  Then  it  was  left  to  Cicero,  as  to  the  worsted  gladiators  in 
the  arena,  only  to  seek  to  die  well.  Livy  says  of  him  :  "  Of  all 
his  misfortunes  death  is  the  only  one  which  he  bore  as  a  man." 
He  might  have  saved  himself  by  flight,  and  for  a  moment  he  tried. 
He  set  sail  for  Greece,  but  after  some  days'  sailing,  suffering  from 
sickness,  tormented  by  regrets,  he  disembarked  at  Caieta  and 
went  back  to  his  Formian  villa,  there  to  die.  Much  is  it  for  a 


FROUDE'S   CAESAR.  483 

man  of  his  nervously  sensitive  nature  that  he  met  with  such  calm 
resolution  the  fate  of  a  violent  death.  We  forget  his  faults  when 
we  imagine  to  ourselves  that  tragic  end,  —  that  litter  in  which 
he  was  hurried  away  against  his  will  by  his  faithful  slaves  down 
through  those  oft-trodden  walks  of  his  Formian  grounds,  Anto- 
nius'  bloodhound  assassins  close  on  his  track,  when  we  hear  him 
order  his  slaves  to  set  down  the  litter  and  make  no  resistance,  and 
then  hear  him,  as  he  calmly  offers  his  neck  to  the  sword,  bid  the 
centurion  strike  sure  at  his  mark,  and  finally  see  the  assassin,  in 
the  clumsiness  of  his  terror,  hewing  thrice  at  that  venerable  head 
ere  he  can  sever  it  from  the  body.  Obedient  to  their  savage 
orders,  the  murderers  hurried  back  to  Rome  with  the  head  and  the 
hands  of  their  victim.  They  brought  them  straight  to  Antonius, 
who  was  just  then  on  his  tribunal  in  the  Forum.  He  greedily 
gloated  on  the  ghastly  spectacle.  He  brought  them  to  his  wife  as 
if  the  most  precious  gift  he  could  give  her.  With  the  fierce  hate 
of  a  revengeful  woman,  Fulvia  took  the  head  in  her  lap,  and  talked 
to  it,  as  if  alive,  in  words  of  malicious  insult.  She  dragged  out 
the  tongue  and  pierced  it  through  and  through  with  her  bodkin. 
The  head  and  hands  were  then  taken  back  to  the  Forum  and 
nailed  to  the  rostra,  to  be  looked  on  with  horror  by  the  people 
who  had  so  often  listened  to  the  living  orator  from  that  very  spot. 
Such  was  the  end  of  Cicero,  of  whom  Julius  Ca3sar  said  :  "  His 
triumphs  and  laurels  were  so  much  the  more  glorious  than  those 
of  war,  as  it  is  of  vastly  greater  significance  to  have  extended  the 
limits  of  the  Roman  mind  than  of  the  Roman  arms." 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

WRITTEN   FOB   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,    MARCH   11,  1881. 

WE  find  it  recorded  of  Marcus  Aurelius  by  Julius  Capitolinus, 
one  of  the  writers  of  the  "  Historia  Augusta,"  that  on  the  day 
of  his  funeral  the  people  had  such  a  veneration  for  the  goodness 
of  their  lost  emperor,  that  they  thought  they  ought  not  to  mourn 
for  him,  so  assured  were  they  all  that  he  had  been  only  lent  by 
the  gods  to  bless  mankind  for  a  time,  and  now  had  gone  back  to 
his  home  in  the  skies.  The  sense  of  the  personal  worth  of  this 
Roman  prince,  thus  expressed  by  his  earliest  biographer,  has  been 
shared  with  that  biographer  by  all  subsequent  writers,  ancient 
and  modern,  pagan  and  Christian.  The  historian  Niebuhr  pro- 
nounced him,  "  the  embodiment  of  human  virtue ;  "  "  no  charac- 
ter," he  says,  "  so  noble  and  spotless  as  his  is  known  in  all  his- 
tory ; "  and  M.  Renan,  in  his  brilliant  "  Conference  "  delivered  in 
London  a  few  months  ago,  speaks  of  him  as  "  the  most  godly  of 
men,"  and  of  his  "  Meditations  "  as  "  a  book  resplendent  with  the 
divine  life."  I  have  then  to  ask  you  to  contemplate  with  me  for 
an  hour  this  imperial  figure  of  ancient  virtue  —  at  once  of  an 
emperor,  the  noblest  of  all  the  Roman  line,  and  of  a  man,  the 
worthiest  of  all  the  Roman  people.  This  fact,  so  unique  in  his- 
tory, by  a  singular  coincidence  stands  out  just  as  unique  in  art, 
in  that  grand  statue  of  Marcus  Aurelius  which  still  crowns  the 
piazza  of  the  Capitol  at  Rome,  the  only  entire  equestrian  statue 
in  bronze  which  has  come  down  to  us  from  antiquity,  and  ad- 
judged to  be  the  finest  equestrian  statue  in  existence.  It  is  also 
fortunate  that  in  the  remains  of  ancient  letters  we  have  preserved 
to  us  distinct  images  of  this  prince  which  show  us  what  man- 
ner of  person  he  was  in  successive  periods  of  his  life,  even  as 
there  are  extant  in  Italy  so  many  busts  representing  him  at 
different  ages,  from  a  boy  of  ten  years  old  down  to  his  death. 
We  may  see  him  in  the  "  Augustan  Histories "  in  his  innocent 
boyhood,  then  in  his  own  correspondence  with  his  teacher  Fronto, 
in  that  buoyant  time  of  his  youth  when  he  was  bounding  forth  to 
the  attainment  of  knowledge  and  truth,  and  in  his  own  golden 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS.  485 

book  of  "  Meditations  "  as  he  was  in  mature  manhood,  grave  but 
yet  kindly,  and  as  cheerful  as  he  might  be  in  such  a  world  as  he 
had  now  reached  and  had  come  to  know,  filling  the  throne  of  the 
Caesars  with  the  humility  of  his  lowliest  subject,  discharging 
the  grandest  human  functions  with  the  submission  of  a  servant, 
and  keeping  for  his  own  share  of  the  supreme  power  he  pos- 
sessed hardly  more  than  its  cares  and  pains  ;  and  in  that  ex- 
alted station  which  he  filled  in  the  eye  of  the  world,  and  in  the 
midst  of  all  its  vast  and  exigent  affairs,  always  having  and  cher- 
ishing that  solitude  of  his  own,  where  as  in  a  sanctuary  was  the 
secret  of  his  life,  in  which  he  daily  strove  by  devout  study  and 
self-examination  to  keep  himself  in  willing  allegiance  of  duty  to 
God  and  his  fellow-men.  Here  is  a  picture  at  which  we  may  look 
many  times  and  from  many  points  of  view,  and  always  and  from 
every  point  with  instruction  and  delight.  The  character  itself  of 
the  man  it  is  always  good  to  contemplate  whose  singular  virtue  sets 
it  apart  amidst  all  the  most  conspicuous  figures  of  that  old  Roman 
world,  and,  bright  with  a  lustre  undimmed  by  time  or  distance, 
inspires  with  every  new  sight  of  it  a  powerful  interest.  In 
studying  such  a  character  as  this  we  seek  eagerly  to  know  on 
what  basis  of  right  thinking  it  rested,  and  what  were  the  senti- 
ments and  principles  which  gave  it  form  and  pressure.  Thus  we 
come  to  study  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  philosopher,  as  he  is  usually 
called,  to  see  in  him  the  last  and  the  worthiest  representative  of 
that  Stoic  philosophy  which,  with  the  Greeks,  and  still  more  with 
the  Romans,  was  of  more  service  than  any  other  philosophical 
system  in  inspiring  a  love  of  virtue  and  a  lofty  sense  of  duty, 
and  which,  as  softened  in  its  tone  by  the  pious  soul  of  its  imperial 
disciple  and  master,  and  enriched  by  the  law  of  love  to  God  and 
man  which  he  taught  and  strove  to  fulfill,  seemed  to  pass  into 
the  domain  of  religion  and  well-nigh  to  the  borders  of  Christian- 
ity. In  Marcus  Aurelius,  too,  we  see  this  philosophy  taught  no 
longer  in  theory  in  the  Porch  or  other  place  of  lecture  and  dis- 
course, but  illustrated  in  living  practice  in  a  broad  open  school  of 
experience ;  in  him  it  rises  to  the  throne  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
and  thence  endeavors  by  its  beneficent  influence  infused  into  all 
the  high  offices  of  government  to  achieve  that  task  of  the  regener- 
ation of  the  world  of  which  it  was  incapable,  but  which  was  to 
be  wrought  out  erelong  by  another  spiritual  force  of  divine  ori- 
gin and  quality  which  was  already  on  the  earth,  and  far  nearer 
Aurelius,  both  as  philosopher  and  emperor,  than  he  was  himself 


48G  MARCUS  AUKELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

aware.  The  remarkable  man  whose  life  and  character  we  are  to  sur- 
vey in  the  light  of  all  these  important  relations  was  born  at  Rome 
in  the  year  121  of  the  Christian  era.  His  true  name,  as  it  came 
to  him  from  his  father,  was  M.  Annius  Verus,  though  in  his  child- 
hood he  was  called  by  a  name  derived  from  his  maternal  grand- 
father, Catilius  Severus.  His  ancestors  on  both  sides  had  for 
several  generations,  through  their  personal  merits,  as  well  as  by 
imperial  favor,  filled  the  highest  offices  of  state.  It  is  worth  not- 
ing that  these  his  ancestors  were  of  that  class  of  Roman  families 
whose  fortunes  Tacitus  is  fond  of  illustrating,  because  alike  under 
good  and  bad  emperors  they  were  distinguished  for  their  personal 
virtues  and  their  elevated  political  sentiments.  As  he  lost  his 
father  in  infancy,  he  was  brought  up  by  his  mother,  with  the  ever 
ready  counsel  of  his  grandfathers  Verus  and  Catilius,  all  of  whom 
he  afterwards  gratefully  mentioned  in  his  "  Meditations  "  when  he 
was  recounting  the  good  gifts  of  his  early  nurture  and  training. 
As  a  boy  he  won  all  hearts  by  his  simplicity  and  earnestness  and 
his  eager  love  of  knowledge  and  truth.  By  such  qualities  he  very 
early  drew  to  him  the  marked  favor  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  who 
bestowed  upon  him,  when  only  six  years  old,  a  kind  of  Roman 
knighthood,  by  giving  him  a  horse  to  be  kept  for  him  at  the  pub- 
lic charge.  It  was  said  of  Hadrian  that  "  his  bad  habits  seemed 
to  fall  off  from  him  when  he  looked  on  the  sweetness  of  this 
innocent  child."  The  young  Marcus  passed  his  boyhood  under 
the  shadow  of  the  temple,  and  amid  the  images  of  religion  and 
the  teaching  of  philosophy.  When  only  eight  years  of  age  he 
was  entered  a  member  of  the  Salian  priesthood,  and  in  this  office 
was  wont  to  chant  the  sacred  hymns  and  figure  in  the  solemn  pro- 
cessions. At  the  age  of  twelve  he  was  drawn  as  by  a  native  bias 
to  virtuous  doctrine  and  practice  to  the  strict  tenets  of  the  Stoic 
school,  which  with  a  quite  precocious  self-discipline  he  sought  to 
apply  to  his  own  dispositions  and  manner  of  life,  seeking  the 
seclusion  of  reflection,  wearing  the  Stoic  mantle,  and  sleeping  on 
bare  boards  or  on  the  ground,  rather  than  on  the  comfortable  bed 
he  might  have  in  his  mother's  luxurious  home.  These  early  ten- 
dencies of  the  boy  were  by  and  by  to  be  developed  into  what  was 
most  characteristic  of  the  man.  Meantime,  under  the  auspices  of 
his  guardians,  his  education  was  conducted  by  the  most  eminent 
teachers  of  the  time,  in  all  departments  of  study,  — grammar,  rhet- 
oric, poetry,  philosophy,  and  also  painting  and  music.  Probably 
never  had  any  teachers  a  pupil  of  finer  instincts  and  aims,  more  fil- 


MARCUS  AURELIUS   ANTONINUS.  487 

ial  and  grateful,  or  yet  more  aspiring  and  independent.  What  a 
touching  passage  is  that  in  his  book,  written  as  he  records  it  him- 
self off  in  the  wilds  of  Pannonia,  where  he  was  carrying  on  one 
of  his  German  campaigns,  when,  in  one  of  those  meditative  hours 
he  always  managed  every  day  to  get,  he  thankfully  reviewed  what 
he  owed  to  the  gods  for  the  education  of  his  youth,  and  mentioned 
in  detail  all  the  good  services  done  him  by  his  various  teachers. 
And  he  loved  there  to  recall,  not  so  much  the  knowledge  hie 
gained  from  these  teachers,  as  the  abiding  influence  he  derived 
from  their  personal  virtues  and  example.  He  gratefully  remem- 
bers what  kind  of  men  they  were,  and  what  kind  of  a  man  they 
aimed  to  make  of  himself.  Patience,  firmness,  gentleness,  and 
sweetness  of  disposition,  benevolence,  truthfulness,  uprightness  of 
judgment  and  conduct,  justice  to  men  and  fear  of  the  gods  —  these 
are  the  virtues  he  saw  in  them,  these  the  lessons  they  taught  him. 
With  like  gratitude  he  recounts  what  he  learned  from  parents, 
—  from  his  father  to  be  modest  and  manly,  from  his  grandfather 
Verus  to  be  candid,  and  from  his  mother  to  be  religious,  and  to 
abstain  not  only  from  an  evil  act,  but  from  any  thought  of  it. 
The  course  of  his  education  and  culture,  as  it  went  on  from  youth 
far  into  manhood,  we  may  trace  in  his  correspondence  with  Fronto, 
his  teacher  in  rhetoric.  This  collection  of  Latin  letters,  about  one 
hundred  and  twenty  in  number,  and  about  equally  divided  between 
the  two  writers,  has  been  discovered  and  published  only  in  recent 
times.  Angelo  Mai,  when  at  work  in  the  Ambrosian  Library,  at 
Milan,  on  a  manuscript  of  the  tenth  century,  found  out  one  day 
that  under  the  writing  which  he  was  deciphering  there  was  an- 
other one.  With  a  patient  ingenuity  of  toil  of  which  only  such 
learned  manuscript  readers  are  capable,  he  finally  brought  to  light 
from  under  the  "  Acts  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  "  this  corre- 
spondence in  seven  books  between  Cornelius  Fronto  and  the  Em- 
peror Marcus  Aurelius.  This  discovery  created  at  the  time  a 
marked  sensation  in  the  learned  world ;  and  since  that  time  the 
work  has  undergone  several  revisions,  and  in  1867  was  published 
by  Professor  Naber,  a  German  scholar,  in  a  tolerably  complete 
form  and  legible  text.  The  literary  merits  of  the  work,  however, 
fell  far  below  the  expectations  which  had  been  awakened ;  and 
readers  who  now  come  to  it  from  the  letters  of  Cicero  or  the 
younger  Pliny  are  conscious  of  a  descent  to  a  much  lower  plane 
of  Latin  literature  in  respect  both  to  thought  and  to  style.  Fronto 
was  a  man  of  erudition,  and  passed  for  the  first  rhetorician  and 


488  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

speaker  of  his  day ;  but  he  was  too  much  of  a  pedant  and  of  a 
martinet  to  achieve  professional  distinction  of  a  high  order.  But 
his  character  was  more  than  anything  which  he  wrote  or  declaimed, 
for  he  was  an  unselfish  and  upright  man  and  a  faithful,  pains- 
taking teacher  ;  and  we  need  not  account  it  as  strange  in  him,  as 
a  Roman  and  a  Roman  rhetorician,  that  he  judged  eloquence  to 
be  the  worthiest  pursuit  of  a  great  man,  and  that  he  was  fired 
with  the  ambition  of  making  his  pupil,  as  the  heir  apparent  to  the 
throne  of  the  Caesars,  a  great  Roman  orator. 

The  best  testimony  to  his  character  as  a  teacher  is  found  in  the 
lifelong  veneration  cherished  for  him  by  his  illustrious  pupil. 
Notable,  too,  are  the  pupil's  words  of  his  teacher :  "  Fronto,"  he 
says,  "  my  master  in  rhetoric,  gave  me  knowledge  of  men,  teach- 
ing me  that  envy,  trickery,  and  dissimulation  belong  to  tyrants ; 
and  that  those  who  are  called  people  of  quality  have  commonly 
not  much  nature  in  them."  But  the  value  of  these  letters  comes 
from  the  insight  which  they  give  us  into  the  education  and  char- 
acter of  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  compass  and  method  of  his  literary 
studies,  and  still  more  into  that  transition  from  rhetoric  to  philos- 
ophy which  was  the  critical  and  decisive  event  of  all  his  life.  I 
have  space  for  only  a  few  notes  on  these  points,  which  I  have 
gathered  from  these  letters.  It  appears  that  under  his  teacher's 
guidance  Marcus  Aurelius  went  through  with  a  generous  course 
of  reading,  of  both  Greek  and  Roman  writers,  though  of  the  lat- 
ter, rather  those  of  the  older  times  than  of  the  Augustan  age. 
Faithful  disciple  of  his  master,  Marcus  Aurelius  diligently  studied 
these  older  writers,  and  in  his  letters  praises  the  justness  of  their 
sentiments  and  the  manly  energy  of  their  diction.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  observe  on  the  one  hand  the  scrupulous  fidelity  with  which 
Fronto  criticises  his  pupil's  Latin  essays  and  declamations  and 
also  his  numerous  exercises  of  translation  from  Greek  writers,  and 
on  the  other  hand  the  dutiful  docility  with  which  the  pupil  gener- 
ally accepts  his  teacher's  criticisms.  At  times,  however,  the  pupil 
defends  the  words  and  phrases  which  are  censured,  and  goes  into 
a  labored  argument,  accompanied  with  quotations  from  Latin  writ- 
ers, in  support  of  his  view.  In  one  letter  the  pupil  is  profoundly 
grateful  for  a  piece  of  advice  which  had  been  given  him ;  that  was, 
that  always  in  his  speech,  written  or  oral,  he  should  keep  to  sim- 
plicity and  truthfulness  of  expression.  He  thus  writes :  "  Happy 
I  have  pronounced  myself  in  having  one  at  my  side  who  teaches 
me  to  write  concisely  and  elegantly  ;  but,  after  all,  the  great  thing 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS.  489 

for  congratulation  is,  that  you  teach  me  to  say  always  what  is 
true.  That,"  he  adds,  "the  speaking  of  downright  truth,  is  the  hard 
thing  for  all  men,  and  it  would  seem  also  for  the  gods ;  for  I  have 
noticed,  in  my  Greek  reading,  that  there  is  no  oracular  response 
but  has  something  crooked  in  it,  in  which  the  reader  gets  entan- 
gled unawares."  Thus  did  this  youth  love  the  truth.  Nor  strange 
was  it  that  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  who  discerned  in  him  this  qual- 
ity, was  fond  of  playing  upon  his  family  name,  Verus,  and  calling 
the  boy  Marcus  Verissimus.  Great  was  the  joy  of  Fronto  in  his 
pupil's  devotion  to  rhetoric ;  but  alas !  the  worthy  man  was  soon 
to  see  that  devotion  transferred  to  other  studies ;  the  glad  dream 
of  his  life,  to  see  eloquence  crowned  in  Marcus  Aurelius,  was  not 
to  be  fulfilled.  With  all  his  dutiful  attention  to  rhetorical  and 
literary  pursuits,  the  young  Marcus  had  never  lost  out  of  his  heart 
that  native  love  for  philosophy  which  had  shown  itself  with  a  pre- 
cocious ardor  in  his  boyish  days,  and  now,  with  the  growing 
thoughtf  ulness  of  early  manhood,  was  to  assert  itself  with  the  calm 
confidence  of  reason,  as  the  ruling  and  shaping  force  of  his  char- 
acter and  life.  We  can  see  and  study  him  at  this  crisis  of  his 
experience,  both  in  his  letters  and  in  his  "  Meditations."  We  ob- 
serve the  influence  of  Fronto  gradually  giving  way  to  that  of  an- 
other of  his  teachers,  Junius  Rusticus,  a  Stoic  philosopher.  Unlike 
Fronto,  he  was  wont  to  dwell,  in  his  instructions,  more  upon  his 
pupil's  imperfections  than  upon  his  merits,  penetrating  in  the  dis- 
covery of  any  fault  and  pitiless  in  exposing  it  to  censure.  Even 
the  praises  he  sometimes  vouchsafed  always  had  in  them  some  re- 
serve. Notwithstanding  his  docility  and  patience,  Marcus  was 
sometimes  repelled  by  this  brusque  style  of  teaching ;  but  his  moral 
instincts  always  carried  him  back  to  this  honest  master,  who  told 
him  the  truth  with  such  inexorable  strictness.  This  moral  quality 
of  his  instruction  Rusticus  would  at  times  carry  also  into  lessons 
on  the  subject  of  speech,  whether  written  or  oral,  criticising  with- 
out mercy  all  artifices  of  ambitious  rhetoric  and  everything  that 
looked  like  exalting  expression  above  thought.  "  It  was  Rusticus," 
he  writes,  "who  put  me  on  my  guard  against  the  delusions  of 
sophistry  and  the  charms  of  rhetoric  and  poetry,  teaching  me  to 
cultivate  honesty  and  veracity,  first  in  thinking  and  feeling,  and 
then  in  all  expression  by  language  and  conduct."  But  this  teacher 
conferred  upon  him  his  crowning  service  when  he  put  into  his 
hands  one  day  a  then  new  and  ever  since  memorable  book,  the 
"Discourses"  of  Epictetus.  The  day  when  first  he  read  that  book, 


490  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

so  rich  in  the  best  vein  of  Stoic  thought,  might  be  set  down  in  his 
spiritual  biography  as  the  birthday  of  Marcus  Aurelius  the  philos- 
opher, so  deep  and  fruitful  was  its  influence  upon  his  character 
and  life.  Strange  that  a  man  who  lived  as  a  slave  in  a  Roman 
family,  and  who  bore  on  his  body  lifelong  marks  of  a  brutal  mas- 
ter, yet  carried  in  him  a  commanding,  kingly  soul,  whose  wise 
thoughts  and  words  made  a  willing  subject  of  the  master  of  the 
world-wide  household  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  noble  Stoicism 
of  the  book  had  its  nearest  and  best  illustration  in  the  writer  him- 
self. This  man  who  taught  so  boldly  that  he  is  the  slave  of  no- 
body, who  is  master  of  himself,  had  already  made  convincing  trial 
of  his  principles.  His  readers  could  believe  his  word,  that  the 
soul  can,  by  its  own  force,  deliver  itself  from  all  the  humiliations 
which  an  outward  lot  inflicts,  for  he  himself  had  achieved  this  de- 
liverance. But  the  book  spoke  to  the  condition  of  Marcus  Aure- 
lius, for  most,  by  its  warm  religious  tone,  not  merely  discoursing, 
like  Zeno  or  Seneca,  of  conformity  to  nature,  or  the  reason  of 
things,  or  the  order  of  the  world,  but  telling  of  a  living  Provi- 
dence in  all  human  affairs,  of  a  personal  and  benevolent  Being 
who  watches  tenderly  over  men  and  never  forsakes  them.  "  When 
you  have  shut  to  your  doors,"  he  taught,  "  and  made  darkness  in 
your  closet,  never  think  of  saying  you  are  alone  ;  for  you  are  not 
alone,  God  is  with  you  there."  In  comparison  with  the  studies 
opened  to  Marcus  Aurelius  in  this  book,  all  others  now  seemed  to 
him  of  secondary  moment. 

He  still  corresponds  with  Fronto,  and  long  after,  when  he  was 
already  emperor,  he  consults  him  when  he  has  anything  to  write 
or  to  speak ;  but  for  the  doctrines  of  Epictetus,  of  the  govern- 
ment of  one's  soul,  of  moral  self-possession,  of  the  knowledge  of 
God,  and  of  man's  destiny,  he  cared  far  more  than  for  the  choice 
of  words  or  the  balance  of  periods,  or  any  nice  distinctions  of 
style  in  the  older  and  the  later  writers.  Doubtless  he  would  have 
put  on  the  Stoic  mantle  in  mature  manhood,  and  become,  like 
Epictetus,  a  philosopher  by  profession,  had  not  Hadrian  destined 
him  to  the  purple  of  the  Caesars  and  the  imperial  office.  That 
emperor  marked  him  for  distinction  by  betrothing  him  when  only 
fifteen  years  old  to  the  daughter  of  Ceionius  Comrnodus,  whom  he 
had  adopted  as  his  successor.  On  the  death  of  Commodus  the 
emperor  took  measures  to  secure  the  succession  of  Marcus  by 
adopting,  in  place  of  Commodus,  Titus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  with 
the  provision  that  Antoninus  should  adopt  his  nephew  Marcus, 


MARCUS  AURELIUS   ANTONINUS.  491 

together  with  the  son  of  the  deceased  Commodus.  In  conse- 
quence of  this  adoption  Marcus  now  assumed  the  name  of  Mar- 
cus Aurelius  Antoninus.  We  are  told  by  his  biographer  that  so 
far  from  his  being  elated  at  his  future  on  his  entrance  as  a  prince 
into  the  family  of  Hadrian,  that  he  exchanged  with  sadness  and 
dread  his  mother's  house  on  the  Caelian  Hill  for  the  imperial 
mansion  on  the  Palatine.  We  may  well  understand  that  a  youth 
of  his  tastes  and  principles,  who  had  thus  far  kept  the  whiteness 
of  his  soul,  would  naturally  shrink  from  entering  the  perilous 
precincts  of  the  imperial  mansion,  from  dwelling  in  a  palace  not 
yet  cleared  of  the  foul  airs  of  a  Nero's  and  a  Domitian's  licentious 
life.  It  may  be,  too,  that  now  with  the  better  and  yet  quite  too 
lax  living  of  Hadrian's  court,  the  young  prince  did  not  quite 
escape  the  contagion.  Where  or  when  else  could  he  have  had 
such  an  experience  as  he  records  in  these  words  :  "  Thank  the  gods 
that  I  got  into  no  infamous  correspondence  with  Benedicta,  and 
that  after  having  fallen  into  some  amours  I  was  cured "?  But 
soon  there  came  a  radical  change  into  all  that  life  on  the  Palatine, 
when  Hadrian  died  and  Antoninus  Pius  came  to  the  throne.  With 
this  his  adoptive  father,  Marcus  Aurelius,  now  the  heir-apparent, 
stood  in  a  relation  of  confidence  and  affection  most  honorable  to 
both,  and  perhaps  without  a  parallel  in  the  annals  of  rulers.  The 
virtues  of  the  father  are  gratefully  recorded  by  the  son ;  his  mild- 
ness and  wisdom,  united  with  justice  and  firmness,  his  piety  free 
from  all  mixture  of  superstition,  and  his  vigilant  efforts  for  the 
elevation  of  the  public  morals ;  the  constancy  of  his  friendships 
and  the  liberal  spirit  which  he  showed  to  others  in  social  inter- 
course, together  with  his  generous  recognition  of  the  personal 
merits  of  all ;  the  magnanimity  with  which  he  bore  unmerited 
censure  ;  the  sound  judgment  and  feeling  which  he  carried  into  all 
relations,  and  his  vigorous  executive  ability  in  all  affairs  whether 
of  his  household  or  of  the  empire.  These  words  reveal  the 
secret  of  the  reverent  love  for  Antoninus  Pius  which  was  always 
so  active  a  sentiment  in  Marcus  Aurelius.  He  conformed  him- 
self, says  his  biographer  Capitolinus,  to  the  wishes  of  his  father 
in  all  actions,  words,  and  thoughts ;  so  constantly  did  he  attach 
himself  to  his  person,  that  during  the  whole  reign  he  was  only 
twice  parted  from  him  for  a  whole  day.  Antoninus,  on  his  side, 
carried  himself  towards  Marcus  Aurelius  with  an  affectionate 
confidence  seldom  shown  by  an  emperor  to  his  own  son.  He 
drew  him  in  action  into  all  affairs  of  government,  heaped  upon 


492  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

him  honors  of  every  kind,  and,  to  bind  him  to  himself  the  more 
closely,  gave  him  in  marriage  his  daughter  Faustina.  Of  course, 
creatures  were  not  wanting  in  the  court  who  tried  by  mischievous 
slanders  to  sow  discord  between  the  emperor  and  the  prince ; 
but  natural  as  it  might  have  seemed,  if  the  emperor  had  some 
times  been  a  little  jealous  of  the  youthful  Caesar,  his  faith  in 
Marcus  continued  to  the  last  as  unshaken  as  was  the  filial  regard 
of  the  latter  to  the  man  to  whom  he  owed  so  much.  For  twenty- 
three  years  the  Roman  world  had  before  it,  in  the  relations  of 
these  two  men,  the  unexampled  spectacle  of  an  absolute  sovereign 
who  lived  with  his  successor  in  undisturbed  harmony,  and  of  an 
heir  to  the  throne  who  had  no  ambition  for  imperial  dominion  as 
could  tempt  him  to  wish  the  day  at  hand  when  it  should  fall  into 
his  own  grasp.  Too  soon,  indeed,  for  Marcus  Aurelius  himself 
came  the  day  when,  on  the  death  of  Antoninus  in  161,  he  assumed 
as  his  successor  the  sole  sovereignty  of  the  Roman  Empire.  No 
better  successor,  as  was  the  universal  testimony,  could  Antoninus 
Pius  have  had.  Marcus  Aurelius  was  now  forty  years  of  age ; 
under  his  father  he  had  fully  availed  himself  of  an  education  in 
the  art  of  government  which  has  seldom  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the 
most  fortunate  princes ;  and  now,  with  a  richly  cultivated  mind 
and  a  matured  noble  character,  he  set  himself  to  the  task  of  ruling 
the  Roman  world  in  the  spirit  and  manner  of  his  predecessor.  He 
improved,  with  the  aid  of  able  jurists,  legislation  and  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice,  provided  for  the  welfare  of  the  capital  by  wise 
municipal  measures  and  by  limiting  the  prodigality  of  public 
shows  and  the  barbarity  of  the  gladiatorial  contests.  He  carried 
forward  the  plans  of  Antoninus  in  the  promotion  of  morals  and  of 
literature,  and  also  in  the  enlarging  and  endowment  of  charity 
schools  and  other  benevolent  institutions.  Men  of  learning  he 
promoted  to  high  positions,  especially  his  old  teachers,  whose 
merits  he  knew  from  his  own  experience.  But  while  he  was  con- 
scientiously devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  state  and  all  its  citi- 
zens, he  was  singularly  unassuming  in  aught  that  pertained  to 
himself.  Towards  personal  offenses  or  treasonous  designs  he  was 
unusually  mild ;  and  in  cases  where  men  were  capitally  condemned 
for  political  crimes  he  was  wont  to  substitute  a  milder  penalty. 
Unlike  a  Tiberius  or  a  Domitian  he  gave  special  honor  to  the 
senate,  introducing  into  it  only  the  worthiest  citizens,  preserving 
its  independence,  and  widening  its  range  of  business.  He  never 
lost  the  conception,  given  him  in  his  youth  by  his  grandfather 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS.  493 

Severus,  of  a  monarchy  which  chiefly  consulted  the  freedom  of 
the  subject.  So  it  was  that  he  came  to  realize  more  nearly  than 
any  other  Roman  emperor  the  ideal  view  ascribed  by  Tacitus  to 
Galba  in  his  speech  on  the  adoption  of  Piso,  of  being  a  republi- 
can emperor,  the  best  man  of  the  commonwealth,  the  absolute 
sovereign,  and  insisting  as  such  upon  no  other  prerogative  than 
that  of  being  the  faithful  servant  of  all  his  subjects. 

But  the  prosperity  which  fell  to  the  lot  of  Antoninus  as  em- 
peror was  denied  his  successor.  During  the  twenty-three  years' 
reign  of  Antoninus  the  empire  suffered  no  serious  commotions  of 
any  kind,  either  within  or  without  its  borders,  while  during  the 
reign  of  Aurelius  it  was  marked  everywhere  by  a  continuous  series 
of  calamities.  Lover  of  peace  as  he  was,  he  must  needs  encounter 
obstinate  wars,  not  only  in  the  distant  East,  with  the  Parthians 
and  Scythians,  but  also  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube  with  the 
German  tribes,  who,  though  often  repulsed,  were  yet  slowly  though 
surely  moving  on  to  the  catastrophe  of  the  empire.  While  con- 
ducting these  wars,  his  best  thoughts  and  energies  were  also  occu- 
pied in  devising  measures  of  relief  from  the  ravages  of  famine  in 
Italy,  and  also  of  a  deadly  plague  which,  brought  into  Europe  by 
the  army  returning  from  Parthia,  was  spreading  desolation  from 
land  to  land  throughout  the  western  world.  These  burdens  of 
government  he  bore  with  his  wonted  patience  and  fidelity,  regret- 
ting ever  that  he  was  denied  the  coveted  leisure  for  his  studies,  but 
consoling  himself  with  the  thought  that  he  was  fulfilling  the  du- 
ties of  his  calling.  One  public  calamity,  however,  fell  upon  him 
like  a  personal  grief,  when  his  ablest  and  most  trusted  general, 
Avidius  Cassius,  the  governor  of  Syria,  raised  the  standard  of 
rebellion,  and  aimed  at  the  usurpation  of  the  throne.  This  rebel- 
lion, which  was  stopped  by  the  murder  of  Cassius  by  his  own  sol- 
diers as  soon  as  they  understood  his  designs,  illustrates  not  only 
the  loyalty  of  the  army  to  their  emperor,  but  his  own  unselfish  and 
forgiving  nature.  When  warned  before  the  outbreak  of  the  dis- 
loyal spirit  of  Cassius,  he  replied  that  it  would  ill  become  him  as 
an  emperor  to  proceed  on  mere  suspicion  against  the  best  general 
of  the  empire ;  and  when,  on  his  way  to  the  scene  of  the  rebellion, 
he  was  met  by  the  tidings  of  the  assassination  of  Cassius,  he  ex- 
pressed his  sorrow  that  the  soldiers  had  robbed  him  of  the  plea- 
sure of  pardoning  him.  It  was  the  lot  of  Aurelius  to  bear  other 
grievous  personal  trials,  in  the  unworthiness  of  those  nearest  to 
him  and  of  his  own  family.  An  unspeakable  burden  he  carried 


494  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

in  Lucius  Verus,  his  adopted  brother  and  a  sharer  of  his  throne, 
who  proved  to  be  a  luxurious,  dissolute  man,  worthy  only  the 
companionship  of  an  emperor  like  Caligula  or  Nero.  But  in 
his  own  home  he  had  far  bitterer  sources  of  trial.  His  wife 
Faustina,  if  we  can  accept  the  recorded  rumors  of  the  time,  was 
perversely  emulous,  in  her  loose  life,  of  her  mdther,  the  elder 
Faustina,  indulging  in  excesses  of  vice  which  were  the  talk  of 
the  streets  and  the  jest  of  the  stage.  Strange,  if  true,  that  in 
this  mother  and  daughter  were  so  soon  reproduced  in  a  Roman  im- 
perial house  the  vicious  examples  of  the  two  Julias  of  the  family 
of  Augustus ;  and  this  time  in  the  wife  of  Antoninus  Pius  and 
the  wife  of  Marcus  Aurelius  the  philosopher.  We  may  believe 
the  stories  of  the  wife  of  Aurelius  to  be  gross  exaggerations,  un- 
worthy of  her  husband  though  she  doubtless  was  ;  but  of  the  de- 
pravity of  his  sou  Commodus,  his  successor  on  the  throne,  there 
is  unfortunately  no  doubt  to  be  entertained ;  he  developed,  even 
from  boyhood,  a  nature  so  brutally  coarse  and  cruel  that  the  peo- 
ple believed  him  to  be  the  son  of  some  gladiator  or  pirate  captain, 
and  no  child  of  Aurelius  at  all.  These  circumstances  which  I 
have  mentioned  as  illustrating  the  trials  of  Aurelius'  life,  and  the 
patience  with  which  he  bore  them,  yet  also  illustrate  the  weaker 
side  of  his  character  as  a  man  and  as  a  sovereign.  With  all  his 
commanding  merits,  and,  one  might  say,  to  some  extent  on  account 
of  these  merits,  he  did  not  prove  himself  fully  equal  to  the  great 
responsibilities  of  his  position.  If  he  illustrated  all  that  is  true 
in  the  saying  of  Plato  which  was  often  on  his  lips,  that  states  can 
flourish  only  when  kings  are  philosophers  or  philosophers  are  kings, 
it  must  be  confessed  that  he  illustrated  no  less  the  fallacy  of  that 
famous  dictum.  The  kingly  state  was  so  little  to  his  taste  that 
whenever  he  might  he  would  gladly  get  away  from  it  to  the  soli- 
tude of  his  own  studies.  Philosophy,  he  once  said,  was  his  mother 
and  the  court  his  stepmother,  and  he  must  be  chiefly  conversant 
with  the  former  if  he  would  find  the  latter  tolerable.  He  was  of 
a  contemplative  rather  than  a  practical  nature.  While  he  gave 
himself  to  his  calling  with  conscientious  fidelity,  yet  he  lacked  the 
fondness  and  the  energy  for  action  which  enters  so  largely  into 
the  greatness  and  success  of  a  sovereign.  Great  as  he  was  in  his 
gentleness  and  mildness,  in  his  generosity  and  philanthropy,  fine 
as  was  his  principle,  which  he  so  often  maintained,  that  we  are  to 
pity  bad  men,  not  to  be  angry  with  them,  yet  he  was  better  fitted 
to  endure  wrong  and  to  pardon  it  than  with  vigorous  hand  to 


MARCUS  AURELIUS   ANTONINUS.  495 

repress  it.  The  worthless  Verus  he  endured  as  a  colleague  for 
eleven  long  years,  and  would  have  endured  to  his  death  had  not 
Providence  interposed.  The  unworthiness  of  his  wife  he  seems 
to  have  borne  at  whatever  cost  of  inward  trial,  yet  so  far  as  we 
know  with  silence  of  word  as  of  action  ;  either  from  a  tenderness 
which  seems  to  border  upon  weakness,  or  from  his  reverent  memory 
of  her  father,  Antoninus  Pius,  or  in  accordance  with  his  principle 
that  we  must  patiently  bear  what  we  cannot  change.  A  far  more 
serious  reproach,  however,  is  in  his  suffering  his  son  Commodus 
to  come  to  the  throne,  painfully  aware  as  he  was  of  his  incorrigi- 
bly vicious  nature.  It  is  probable,  too,  that  under  a  more  rigid 
government  the  rebellion  of  Avidius  Cassius  had  never  arisen. 

Cassius  was  a  man  of  marked  military  ability  and  inexorably 
stern  in  his  ideas  of  discipline  ;  but  he  was  incapable  of  any  sym- 
pathy with  the  emperor's  philosophy.  But  his  words,  as  recorded 
by  his  biographer,  though  uttered  in  a  disloyal  spirit,  have  in 
them  the  ring  of  truth.  "  Marcus,"  he  says,  "  though  a  very  good 
man,  in  his  very  goodness  lets  men  live  whose  life  he  disapproves. 
Where  is  Marcus  Cato  the  censor?  Where  the  discipline  of  our 
ancestors  ?  While  our  good  emperor  is  philosophizing  about  vir- 
tue and  honor,  bad  men  thrive  and  villains  fatten  on  the  em- 
pire's treasury."  These  words,  though  from  an  unfriendly  source, 
may  yet  form  for  us  now  a  fitting  transition  to  a  fuller  considera- 
tion of  that  philosophy  which  trained  Marcus  Aurelius  to  his  excel- 
lence of  character  and  life,  but  hindered  his  undivided  attention 
to  his  duties  as  a  sovereign.  As  we  find  it  in  his  book  of  "  Medi- 
tations," it  is  the  same  in  its  essential  principles  as  that  Stoic  phi- 
losophy which,  as  first  taught  by  Zeno  and  his  successors,  had 
carried  with  it  some  of  the  noblest  thinking  and  living  of  philo- 
sophic Greece,  and  which,  when  transplanted  to  Italy,  was  adopted 
by  those  men  of  Rome  who,  amid  the  civil  wars  of  the  declining 
republic  and  under  the  tyranny  of  the  earlier  emperors,  sacredly 
preserved  what  yet  remained  of  the  old  Roman  manners  and 
political  sentiments.  Indeed,  Stoicism  seems  to  have  had  a  kind 
of  elective  affinity  for  the  substance  of  Roman  being.  Its  ear- 
nest view  of  the  world,  its  rigid  discipline,  its  aptitude  for  the 
rule  of  life,  was  far  more  congenial  to  the  Roman  mind  than  the 
idealism  of  Plato  or  the  science  of  Aristotle.  It  was  put  to  its 
utmost  strain  of  trial  in  that  company  of  Roman  nobles  who  could 
not  adjust  themselves  to  the  supreme  power  of  Caesar,  and  there 
it  produced  in  Marcus  Porcius  Cato  that  example  of  unstained 


496  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

honor  and  integrity  which  extorted  the  admiration  of  Caesar  him- 
self, and  drew  from  Cicero  that  fine  testimony  that  Cato  was  of 
all  Roman  freemen  the  worthiest  of  Roman  freedom  (Phil.  III. 
4).  And  how  many  bright  examples  has  Tacitus  put  upon  his 
historic  pages  of  men  bred  in  this  school  who  kept  their  souls 
upright  and  pure  at  the  court  of  imperious  and  dissolute  rulers, 
and  showed  even  to  the  bitter  end  how  they  counted  dishonor  far 
worse  than  death.  In  his  mention  of  the  life  and  sad  fortunes  of 
one  of  these  noble  Romans,  Helvidius  Priscus,  Tacitus  has  briefly 
stated  the  leading  tenets  of  this  school.  "  Helvidius  followed," 
he  says,  "  those  teachers  of  philosophy  who  count  virtue  or  moral 
good  as  the  sole  good,  and  vice  or  moral  evil  as  the  sole  evil,  and 
count  power,  rank,  riches,  and  all  the  other  things  which  are  exter- 
nal to  the  soul  as  neither  good  nor  evil,  but  indifferent."  We 
have  only  to  expand  these  principles  to  reach  the  whole  of  the 
Stoic  philosophy.  In  relation  to  this  only  real  antithesis  of  good 
and  evil,  wisdom  and  folly,  and  the  consequent  happiness  or  mis- 
ery, all  other  human  distinctions  of  nation,  condition,  sex,  family, 
are  of  no  account.  All  men  are  of  like  origin  and  nature,  for  all 
are  beings  of  reason,  having  the  Deity  as  father  of  all ;  they  all 
have  a  like  destiny,  and  are  subject  to  the  same  law ;  all  mankind 
constitute  one  people,  the  world  one  state,  the  sovereign  of  which 
is  the  Deity,  its  constitution  the  eternal  law  of  reason.  The  more 
unconditionally  men  subject  themselves  to  this  law,  the  more  ex- 
clusively they  seek  their  happiness  in  virtue,  so  much  the  more 
satisfied  are  they  in  themselves,  and  the  more  ready  to  cherish  a 
sense  of  fellowship  with  others,  and  more  willing  each,  in  respect 
to  the  whole  of  which  each  feels  himself  a  part,  to  do  his  duty  in 
all  human  relations.  These  the  leading  principles  of  Stoicism  in 
Greece  and  in  Rome,  as  taught  by  Seneca  and  Epictetus,  we  find 
also  in  the  book  of  Marcus  Aurelius  which  I  have  called  his 
"  Meditations."  Its  literal  title  is  "  The  Things  of  Marcus  Aure- 
lius to  Himself,"  and  it  is  thus  of  the  nature  of  a  private  diary, 
consisting  of  discourses  to  himself,  his  inmost  thoughts  in  his  most 
secluded  hours  set  home  directly  to  himself  in  his  cherished  prac- 
tice of  self-examination  and  self-confession.  Every  sentiment  in 
the  book  is  in  the  Stoic  line  of  thought ;  every  day  and  hour  the 
writer  seems  to  be  reminding  himself  that  he  can  attain  to  the 

O 

moral  freedom  of  the  wise  man  only  by  seeking  his  highest  good 
in  submitting  himself  to  the  will  of  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  world, 
and  then  by  ceaseless  endeavors  to  promote  the  welfare  of  others. 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS.  497 

Yet  we  find  here  nothing  like  a  theory  of  ethics ;  it  is  practical 
ethics  in  the  form  of  a  rule  of  life ;  and  morality,  as  it  is  treated, 
comes  far  nearer  to  the  mildness  and  warmth  of  religious  medita- 
tion than  in  the  philosophy  of  Zeno  or  even  in  that  of  Seneca  or 
Epictetus.  Marcus  Aurelius  felt  too  deeply  the  nothingness  of 
earthly  things,  the  moral  weakness  and  helplessness  of  men,  to  be 
able  to  set  himself  to  speculative  views  of  the  world.  With  him 
philosophy  must  bring  rest  to  a  troubled  soul  and  healing  to  a  dis- 
eased will ;  the  philosopher,  as  a  lover  of  true  wisdom,  must  be  a 
physician  of  souls,  a  priest  and  servant  of  God  among  men.  He 
must  show  himself  such  most  of  all  by  a  true  love  of  men,  so  that 
he  may  cheerfully,  without  reserve  and  with  a  free  will,  be  doing 
them  good.  On  this  head  he  thus  discourses :  "  One  man,  when  he 
has  done  a  service  to  another,  is  ready  to  set  it  down  to  his  account 
as  a  favor  conferred.  Another  does  not  quite  do  this,  but  still  in 
his  own  mind  he  thinks  of  the  man  as  his  debtor.  But  a  third, 
in  a  manner,  does  not  even  know  what  he  has  done,  but  he  is  like 
a  vine  which  has  produced  grapes,  and  seeks  for  nothing  more 
after  it  has  once  produced  its  proper  fruit."  In  another  place  he 
says :  "  Do  you  seek  to  be  paid  for  the  service  you  have  done 
your  fellow  ?  Why,  it  is  just  as  if  the  eye  asked  a  recompense 
for  seeing,  or  the  feet  for  walking?  All  men,"  our  philosopher 
teaches,  "  are  related,  all  mankind  is  one  body,  and  whoever  cuts 
himself  loose  from  a  fellow-man,  parts  himself  like  a  severed  limb 
from  the  stock  of  humanity.  Let  us  do  good,  not  because  it  is 
seemly  and  of  good  report,  but  because  doing  good  of  itself  is  a 
joy."  The  erring,  too,  and  the  fallen,  he  tells  himself  to  love,  and 
to  pardon  the  unthankful  and  evil-minded.  Men  offend  and  wrong- 
others  through  ignorance  of  their  true  good,  and  we  do  not  suffer 
in  our  own  selves  by  others'  wrong-doing,  and,  besides,  we  ourselves 
are  not  free  from  wrong-doing ;  instead  then  of  returning  with  spite 
the  spite  of  an  enemy,  let  us  rather  overcome  him  with  gentleness. 
Yet  we  are  not  to  think  of  this  gentle  sovereign  as  a  kind  of 
quietist  slumbering  on  the  throne,  or  a  dreamer  of  Utopian  rev- 
eries about  perfecting  himself  and  mankind.  On  the  contrary,  the 
book  is  fresh  and  strong  with  the  air  of  a  wholesome  good  sense 
and  vigilant  action.  The  philosophic  ruler  loves  his  solitude, 
but  he  loves  it  for  the  strength  it  gives  him  for  labor  in  the 
world.  He  says :  "  Constantly  give  to  yourself  this  retreat,  and 
there  renew  yourself ;  meditate  again  upon  your  principles,  and 
they  shall  be  sufficient  to  cleanse  your  soul  and  send  you  back  to 


498  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

men  free  from  all  discontent  with  daily  work."  And  again :  "  Be- 
think  you  every  hour  that  you  are  to  act  as  a  Roman  and  a  man ; 
make  offering  of  yourself  as  a  manly  citizen,  an  emperor,  a  soldier 
at  his  post,  and  pursue  the  business  in  hand  with  vigor  and  appli- 
cation." Life  is  short,  and  one  fruit  of  it  is  a  pious  disposition 
and  the  doing  of  what  is  useful  to  men.  And  so  far  from  being 
a  Utopian  in  politics,  he  says  to  himself,  "Never  hope  for  a 
republic  like  Plato's,  that  draft  is  too  fine  ;  and  the  morals  of 
the  world  will  not  come  up  to  it.  Remember  that  a  moderate 
reformation  is  a  great  point,  and  rest  contented.  Do  what  God 
requires  of  you,  and  trust  for  the  issue  and  event."  But  it  is 
after  all  the  inner  life  of  the  man  which  most  interests  us  in 
these  "  Meditations,"  the  image  it  puts  before  us  of  that  pagan  soul 
so  enamored  of  his  conception  of  moral  perfection  that  in  that 
humble  solitude  of  his  into  which  he  was  as  glad  to  retreat  from 
the  height  and  glare  of  his  throne,  he  ever  was  laboring  to  form 
his  soul  after  the  ideal  of  virtue  which  his  philosophy  set  before 
him,  even  as  an  artist  bent  upon  finishing  his  masterpiece,  and 
studiously  retouching  it  without  ceasing.  "  What,"  he  asks  him- 
self, "  are  you  to  do  with  your  soul  to-day  ?  Remember  that  you 
have  within  you  something  divine,  that  comes  from  God,  and 
that  you  must  live  in  communion  with  him  who  has  his  temple 
within  you."  In  many  passages  you  might  think  you  were  read- 
ing the  diary  of  a  Christian  saint.  "  Oh,  my  soul,"  he  exclaims, 
"  when  will  you  be  truly  good  and  simple  in  your  goodness  ? 
Dress  yourself  in  simplicity,  in  purity,  and  in  indifference  to  all 
that  is  neither  good  nor  evil."  Tacitus  says  that  the  love  of  glory 
is  the  last  of  the  passions  which  even  a  wise  man  puts  off,  a 
thought  which  Milton,  too,  expresses  in  his  "  fame  —  that  last  in- 
firmity of  noble  minds."  This  passion  Marcus  Aurelius  felt  like 
other  men,  and  well  he  might  feel  it  as  the  sovereign  of  the  world, 
with  ample  scope  for  its  exercise  in  peace  and  in  war  ;  but  this 
passion,  with  all  others,  he  strives  to  put  under  and  subdue. 
Sometimes  he  reminds  himself  how  fallible  and  fickle  are  the 
judgments  of  the  world.  "  What !  "  he  exclaims,  "  is  it  in  other 
men's  opinions  of  you  that  you  put  your  happiness  ?  Why,  you 
will  find  that  men  will  bless  you  as  a  god  to-morrow  who  curse 
you  to-day  as  a  beast."  In  other  places  he  bids  himself  remem- 
ber how  fleeting  is  even  the  most  durable  renown,  how  the  eulogist 
and  eulogized  appear  on  the  stage  one  day  and  are  gone  forever 
the  next  day ;  how  that  which  comes  effaces  directly  that  which 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS.  499 

has  just  gone ;  that  all  things  thus  pass  away,  and  then  he  asks : 
"  What,  then,  is  this  coveted  immortality  ?  It  is  but  vanity." 
Recalling,  perhaps,  his  own  wars  and  their  victories,  which  taxed 
his  time  and  energies  for  more  than  half  his  reign,  and  how  little 
worth  they  all  were  and  are,  he  says  :  "  Consider  how  the  ages 
gone  by  have  known  you,  and  how  you  will  be  just  as  unknown 
to  the  ages  to  come.  Neither  your  power  nor  your  fame  has  gone 
far  among  those  barbarians ;  how  many  that  never  heard  your 
name,  and  how  many  that  laud  you  will  soon  blame  you,  or  per- 
haps forget  you  altogether.  In  short,  glory  is  worth  no  man's 
serious  care,  nor  aught  else  external  that  men  covet  so  much." 
A  recent  French  writer  (M.  Martha)  has  remarked  that  the  Ro- 
man philosophic  emperor  utters  the  same  cry  as  the  wise  king  of 
Hebrew  Scripture,  "  Vanity  of  vanity,  all  is  vanities,"  but  that  with 
Marcus  Aurelius  it  comes  out  of  a  soul  more  pure,  less  uncertain, 
and  less  troubled.  The  Jewish  king,  sated  with  selfish  indulgence, 
whether  in  sensual  pleasure,  or  in  power,  or  in  knowledge,  is  disa- 
bused at  last,  and  in  despair  turns  him  to  his  religious  conclusion 
of  the  whole  matter ;  while  the  Roman  emperor,  without  any  pique 
against  pleasures,  which  to  him  have  been  ever  indifferent,  deems 
lightly  of  the  world  not  because  he  has  abused  it,  but  because  he 
knows  something  finer  and  better  and  less  perishable,  and  so  is 
drawn  to  God  by  the  light  of  reason  and  the  instincts  of  the 
heart.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  a  sagacious  and  a  just  remark. 
Solomon  had  from  his  birth  and  education  what  Marcus  Aurelius 
had  not,  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah  as  the  ever-living  God ;  but 
ever  the  more  for  this  difference  between  them  must  we  admire 
and  revere  in  the  pagan  Stoic  not  only  his  sincere  renunciation  of 
human  grandeur  and  glory,  but  much  more  his  submissive  obe- 
dience to  the  will  and  laws  of  the  Deity,  whether  conceived  as 
god  or  gods,  certainly  as  a  divine  power  that  ruled  the  world  with 
reason  and  goodness.  It  is  not  easy,  however,  to  determine  from 
his  writings  what  was  really  the  conception  of  Deity  which  was 
entertained  by  Marcus  Aurelius.  Sometimes  he  speaks  in  the 
pantheistic  terms  of  the  earlier  Stoicism  of  conformity  to  the 
universal  reason,  or  of  being  in  harmony  with  the  soul  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  but  for  the  most  part,  and  especially  when  he  speaks  of 
worship  and  prayer,  his  words  carry  with  them  a  belief  in  the 
personal  existence  of  Deity  as  a  moral  Providence,  and  as  the 
Father  and  protector  of  all  men.  Thus  in  one  place  he  speaks  of 
"that  intelligent  Being  who  governs  the  universe  ; "  and  in  another 


500  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

he  says  the  particular  effects  in  the  world  are  all  wrought  by  one 
Intelligent  Nature,  the  universal  cause  ;  and  again,  "  I  adore  the 
Governor  of  the  world,  and  am  easy  in  the  prospect  of  his  pro- 
tection." A  peculiar  interest  belongs  to  those  passages  in  which 
this  thoughtful  and  devout  mind  is  turned  to  the  subject  of  death. 
His  book  seems  to  be  a  manual  of  preparation  for  death  quite  as 
much  as  for  the  conduct  of  life,  —  if  I  may  use  the  titles  of  Jeremy 
Taylor's  manuals,  —  for  "Holy  Dying"  as  for  "Holy  Living." 
He  seems  often  to  anticipate  the  presence  of  death,  to  be  training 
himself  to  look  it  in  the  face,  and  to  render  to  it  a  good  account. 
He  makes  haste  to  purify  his  soul,  because  he  feels  that  he  has 
but  little  time  to  live  ;  he  seeks  to  detach  himself  more  and  more 
from  the  world,  because  he  will  offer  to  the  Deity  at  the  last 
moment  a  complete  submission  void  of  all  regrets.  One  must 
fulfill,  he  says,  with  irreproachable  rectitude  all  the  obligations 
which  the  divine  reason  imposes  upon  us,  and  not  least  that  last 
one  of  all,  to  die  well.  But  it  is  painfully  sad  to  observe  how 
with  that  act  of  dying  well  the  Stoic  faith  fails  him,  with  no 
place  in  it  for  the  hope  he  seems  to  crave,  but  dares  not  assert, 
of  a  life  beyond  that  act,  and  especially  of  a  personal  life.  "  How 
can  it  be,"  he  asks,  "that  the  gods  who  have  ordered  all  things  for 
the  good  of  mankind  have  overlooked  this  alone,  that  men  who, 
during  all  their  lives,  have  had  communion  with  the  Deity  should 
after  all  never  live  again,  but  be  extinguished  forever  ? "  He 
straightway  represses  this  murmur,  and  assures  himself  that  how- 
ever this  may  be  it  is  all  ordered  for  the  best ;  but  he  leaves  the 
impression  that  he  is  himself  aspiring  to  a  different  future  from 
that  promised  by  the  pantheism  of  the  earlier  Stoics. 

As  we  thus  inquire  into  the  ideas  of  Marcus  Aurelius  on  the 
great  themes  of  God  and  immortality  we  cannot  but  remember 
that  his  career  as  emperor  and  philosopher  fell  in  what  we  now 
call  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era.  Exactly  in  all  those 
moral  and  religious  views  in  which  he  passed  beyond  the  old  Ro- 
man standpoint  as  well  as  that  of  the  earlier  Stoicism  he  seemed 
to  come  into  very  near  relations  to  Christianity.  That  inward 
piety,  that  deep  sense  of  the  vanity  of  earthly  things,  and  that  feel- 
ing for  human  weakness  and  waywardness,  that  charity  for  all  men 
which  forgot  not  the  thankless  and  unworthy,  —  all  these  marked 
features  in  the  character  of  Aurelius  were  the  virtues  of  the  early 
Christians  who  were  living  in  his  time  and  in  his  dominions. 
And  yet  so  far  from  his  holding  any  friendly  relations  to  Chris- 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS.  501 

tianity  or  having  any  sympathy  with  it,  or  indeed  any  knowledge 
or  even  conception  of  its  truths,  we  are  confronted  with  the  his- 
torical fact  that  the  Christians  suffered  more  from  persecution 
under  his  reign  than  under  any  preceding  reign  since  that  of  Nero. 
We  need  not  ascribe  to  the  emperor  the  spirit  of  inhumanity  or 
of  intolerance ;  he  was  proverbially  lenient  in  respect  to  penal 
acts  of  every  kind ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  his  reign, 
and  probably  with  his  sanction,  Christians  in  Smyrna  and  at 
Lyons  were  visited  as  Christians  with  penalties  of  imprisonment 
and  of  death.  It  must  be  conceded  that  Marcus  Aurelius  was  not 
above  the  Roman  prejudices  against  the  Christian  faith  which 
showed  themselves  not  only  in  the  rage  of  popular  indignation, 
but  also  in  the  severe  expressions  recorded  in  their  works  by  such 
writers  as  Tacitus  and  the  younger  Pliny.  Odious  as  were  the 
imputations  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  Christians  of  spreading  a 
destructive  superstition  and  of  hating  all  mankind,  it  was  never- 
theless believed  even  by  enlightened  people  that  these  imputations 
were  well  founded.  When  we  remember  how  very  late  it  was  in 
the  history  of  Christianity  itself  ere  the  idea  even  of  toleration, 
to  say  nothing  of  religious  freedom,  dawned  upon  the  Christian 
world,  how  for  centuries  down  even  to  modern  tunes  Christians 
persecuted  one  another  even  to  the  direst  forms  of  torture  and 
death,  we  cannot  be  surprised  that  Marcus  Aurelius,  with  all  his 
humanity  and  virtue,  could  not,  through  the  prejudices  of  his  time 
and  his  race  and  his  education,  see  Christianity  as  it  really  was, 
and  so  in  his  opinion  and-  his  conduct  he  did  it  the  gravest  injus- 
tice. But  we  must  not  forget  that  as  emperor  he  could  not  but 
proceed  against  it  as  hostile  and  treasonable  to  the  state  of  which 
he  was  the  sovereign,  and  upon  its  profession  as  a  crime,  since 
Christianity  looked  upon  the  Roman  state  as  a  kingdom  opposed 
to  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  and  destined  with  the  pagan  world 
itself  to  a  swift-coming  destruction.  Probably  it  was  as  far  from 
the  conceptions  of  the  Christians  of  that  time,  as  of  the  Romans 
themselves,  that  erelong  Christianity  was  soon  to  become  the 
established  religion  of  the  Roman  Empire.  And  how  as  a  phi- 
losopher Marcus  regarded  the  new  faith  appears  from  a  single 
reference  to  the  Christians  in  his  "  Meditations."  It  is  a  word 
uttered  only  incidentally,  but  shows  all  the  more  clearly  with  what 
a  sad  obliquity  of  vision  he  looked  at  the  Christian  character.  He 
is  speaking  of  the  approach  of  death,  and  says :  "  The  soul  must 
be  ready  to  meet  it  with  dignity  and  fortitude,  and  not  with  mere 


502  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS. 

obstinacy  like  the  Christians."  How  painful  it  is  to  contemplate 
the  errors  of  the  most  enlightened  minds,  the  imperfections  of  the 
most  virtuous  men !  That  heroic  Christian  firmness  which  Mar- 
cus Aurelius  thought  to  be  mere  obstinacy,  it  was  not  for  him  or 
his  successors  to  withstand  and  subdue.  That  genuine  Stoic  word 
which  the  philosophic  emperor  once  uttered  of  the  treasonable 
designs  of  Avidius  Cassius,  "  No  prince  ever  destroyed  his  succes- 
sor," had  a  larger  significance  than  he  could  imagine  in  the  rela- 
tions of  that  then  persecuted  faith  to  the  persecuting  empire. 
There,  too,  it  was  not  possible  for  the  present  to  destroy  the  pow- 
ers of  the  future.  Little  as  either  Christians  or  pagans  then 
knew,  the  future  of  the  world  belonged  in  reality  to  Christianity. 
That  religion  was  triumphantly  to  outlive  and  to  rise  above  the 
Roman  state  and  the  Roman  gods.  Impotent  as  well  as  mon- 
strously wrong  was  the  attempt  to  extinguish  it  in  the  blood  of 
its  confessors,  and  only  a  mournful  impression  does  it  make  when 
we  look  back  and  see  the  pure-minded  Aurelius  in  fellowship  with 
an  enterprise  so  unlike  himself.  But  may  we  not  say  that  he 
"  did  it  iguorantly  in  unbelief,"  even  as  was  said  of  himself  by  the 
great  Christian  apostle,  himself  also  by  his  own  confession  "a 
persecutor  and  injurious ;  "  nay,  the  Jewish  was  worse  than  the 
Roman  persecutor,  for  he  in  person  "  made  havoc  of  the  church," 
"  breathing  out  threatenings  and  slaughters  against  its  disciples." 
And  may  we  not  believe  of  the  other  what  we  know  only  of  the 
one,  that  he  too  "  obtained  mercy  "  ?  He  met  the  inevitable  hour, 
not  indeed  with  the  triumphant  faith  of  the  Christian  apostle,  but 
yet  with  the  composure  of  that  Stoic  belief  to  which  he  had  been 
true  during  all  his  life.  In  that  supreme  moment  he  was  true  to 
the  ^last  Meditation  he  wrote  in  his  book :  "  When  the  end  comes 
depart  with  a  peaceful  heart,  for  he  who  dismisses  you  means  you 
no  harm."  Even  thus  did  he  depart  himself,  Marcus  Aurelius 
the  philosopher.  Thus  fulfilled  his  course,  and  finally  went  down 
to  his  setting,  that  brightest  of  all  the  lights  of  the  old  Roman 
world.  And  yet  so  enduring  and  so  diffusive  is  all  moral  as  well 
as  all  physical  light,  that  even  now  and  in  our  own  far-off  horizon 
there  lingers  yet  something  of  the  glow  of  that  ancient  Roman 
goodness ;  even  as  of  late  we  have  seen  our  western  skies  illu- 
mined with  the  richest  twilight  hues  long  after  the  bright  sun  has 
set. 


THE  KELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

WRITTEN   FOR   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,    JANUARY   13,  1882. 

I  AM  to  speak  to  you  to-night  of  the  religion  of  the  Romans, 
first,  in  its  primitive  and  always  characteristic  qualities,  and  sec- 
ondly, in  the  changes  which  it  underwent  in  the  progress  of  intel- 
ligence, or,  to  put  it  in  ancient  phrase,  through  the  influence  of 
philosophy. 

We  have  a  ready  point  of  departure  for  such  a  discussion  as 
this  in  the  deep  and  the  general  interest  which  is  felt  in  our  day 
in  the  study  of  the  various  religions  of  the  world,  and  in  the  study 
of  what  is  called  comparative  religion,  as  embracing  the  relations 
of  all  these  religions  to  one  another  and  to  Christianity.  Certainly 
in  all  the  vast  domain  of  knowledge  there  is  no  greater  field,  none 
nobler,  none  more  inviting  to  inquiry  than  that  which  is  opened 
to  us  by  such  studies  as  these.  They  have  to  do  with  what  is 
highest  and  what  is  deepest  in  human  nature  and  destiny;  they 
disclose  to  us  in  the  thoughts  and  beliefs  and  hopes  of  human 
souls  of  all  races  and  ages,  touching  God  and  immortality,  what  is 
most  vital  in  the  spiritual  experience  of  mankind.  It  may  be 
that,  living  as  we  are  in  the  full  light  of  the  Christian  religion, 
the  heirs  and  possessors  of  its  priceless  blessings,  we  are  apt  when 
we  think  of  a  pagan  religion,  as  the  Roman,  to  reduce  it  in  our 
thought  to  a  hardly  appreciable  value,  alike  in  what  it  contained 
of  faith  or  worship,  and  in  the  influence  which  it  had  upon  char- 
acter and  life.  Yet  we  cannot  suppose  that  of  all  mankind  only 
Jews  and  Christians  are  religious  human  beings,  or  alone  have 
had  or  have  a  religious  faith  and  life.  We  are  taught  by  the 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  that  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  Jews  only 
but  also  of  the  Gentiles.  That  same  apostle  also  declared,  and 
when  preaching  to  a  pagan  people,  to  the  Athenians,  "  God  hath 
made  of  one  blood  all  nations  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the 
earth ;  .  .  .  that  they  should  seek  the  Lord,  if  haply  they  might 
feel  after  Him  and  find  Him,  though  He  be  not  far  from  every  one 
of  us."  Grant  that  the  religion  of  the  Romans  was  an  imperfect 
one,  that  it  was  a  false  one,  and  that  whatever  in  it  was  true  had 


504  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

not  the  hold  upon  the  heart  and  life  which  it  ought  to  have  had, 
even  as  we  must  confess  is  the  case  with  Christianity  itself ;  yet 
it  was  the  religion  which  they  reached  by  what  we  call  the  light 
of  nature;  to  quote  again  from  the  apostle,  and  now  from  his 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  "  God's  everlasting  power  and  divinity  be- 
ing perceived  through  the  things  that  are  made,"  and  "  the  work 
of  the  law  being  written  in  their  hearts."  It  was  also  a  religion 
which  belonged  to  Roman  national  life  for  a  thousand  years,  and 
belonged  to  it  just  as  really  as  their  language,  their  jurisprudence, 
their  eloquence,  their  dominion ;  and  I  think  there  is  nothing  more 
interesting  in  all  the  history  of  that  wonderful  people  who  have 
ruled  the  world,  and  in  a  sense  are  ruling  it  now,  than  to  know 
how  they  conceived  themselves  and  carried  themselves  as  related 
to  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  all  men  and  all  things,  that  is,  to  know 
what  was  their  religion,  the  subject  to  which,  without  further  in- 
troduction, I  now  ask  your  attention. 

The  religion  of  the  Romans,  as  of  all  their  kindred  of  the  great 
Indo-European  family  of  nations,  was  primarily  a  nature-worship ; 
a  worship  of  the  invisible  powers  of  nature,  conceived  as  spiritual 
beings,  pervading  and  ruling  the  material  world  and  all  the  life 
of  men.  Above  all  others,  it  was  the  powers  of  light,  the  celestial 
powers,  which  the  Romans  worshiped,  comprehending  these  in  the 
supreme  Jupiter,  or,  as  the  word  literally  means,  the  Father  of 
Light,  the  god  of  the  bright  heavens.  In  like  manner  they  as- 
cribed a  divine  power  to  the  forces  which  they  conceived  as  living 
and  ruling  in  all  the  phenomena  of  manifold  earth,  field  and  val- 
ley, wood  and  mountain,  spring  and  stream,  and  bringing  to  pass 
in  them  all  the  reciprocal  movements  of  production  and  growth 
and  of  decay  and  dissolution.  Much  of  this  worship  of  earth  the 
Romans  had  in  common  with  the  Greeks,  as  of  Ceres  and  Tellus, 
corresponding  to  Demeter  and  Gaea,  and  so  of  many  others.  Oth- 
ers, however,  were  of  Roman  origin,  as  Flora  the  goddess  of  flow- 
ers, and  Vertumnus  the  god  of  spring,  and  Pales  of  shepherds, 
and  most  of  all,  and  oldest  of  all,  the  worship  of  the  earth  under 
the  name  of  the  Bona  Dea,  or  Dea  Dia.  To  this  worship  be- 
longs the  institution  of  the  Fratres  Aroales,  a  rural  fraternity 
or  priesthood,  that  goes  back  to  the  mythic  days  of  Romulus, 
whose  annual  service  it  was  to  offer  prayers  and  sacrifices  for  the 
fruitfulness  of  the  earth.  This  priesthood  continued  during  all 
the  Roman  generations  down  to  the  fifth  century  of  the  empire, 
and  passed  away  at  last  in  its  pagan  form  only  with  the  establish- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS.  505 

ment  of  Christianity.  With  such  tenacity,  indeed,  did  this  ancient 
service  cling  to  the  religion  of  the  world  that  it  was  observed 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  so-called  rogation  ceremonies 
of  the  Latin  Church ;  and  in  England,  the  rural  processions  with 
prayers  for  the  fruits  of  the  earth  went  on  annually,  even  to  the 
Reformation,  the  three  days  of  Whitsunweek,  Monday,  Tuesday, 
Wednesday,  corresponding  to  the  old  Roman  holy-days,  the  sixth, 
fourth,  and  third,  before  the  Kalends  of  June  (May  27,  29,  30). 
But  these  powers  of  nature  reached  a  religious  significance  in  the 
thought  of  the  Romans  from  their  being  conceived,  not  so  much 
as  they  were  in  themselves,  but  as  they  were  related  to  human 
life.  These  Roman  gods  are  indeed  personifications  of  the  forces 
of  nature,  but  they  become  objects  of  worship  only  as  they  are 
considered  as  having  a  beneficent  or  a  destructive  influence  upon 
human  welfare.  Thus  we  see  that  what  was  simply  physical  in 
this  nature-worship  passed  over  into  what  is  moral  and  spiritual, 
and  that  it  was  these  which  invested  it  with  a  religious  meaning. 
To  the  Roman,  Jupiter  was  not  merely  the  god  of  the  heavens, 
but  he  was  the  ruler  of  human  life  and  its  destinies ;  he  it  was 
that  shaped  and  guided  all  that  was  great  and  good ;  he  was  in 
himself  and  his  government  Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus,  the  best 
and  the  greatest ;  a  name  which  at  the  first  seems  to  have  sprung 
from  an  instinctive  conception  of  one  God ;  and  though  it  was 
afterwards  broken  up  into  many  gods,  yet  in  the  Roman  mind  was 
ever  getting  back  to  the  idea  of  the  one  all-ruling  Deity. 

Juno,  a  word  of  the  same  origin  as  Jupiter,  was  also  the  god- 
dess of  light ;  she  was  the  goddess  of  birth  and  marriage,  of  house 
and  home,  and  so  the  tutelar  deity  of  women,  the  heavenly  ideal 
of  the  Roman  housewife  and  matron,  the  materfamilias.  Domes- 
tic religion,  however,  had  its  special  expression  in  the  worship  of 
Vesta,  the  goddess  of  the  hearth,  as  the  word  literally  means,  the 
hearth  as  the  centre  of  the  Roman  dwelling  and  all  its  home  life ; 
and  the  Vestal  fire  ever  burning  there  was  a  visible  symbol  of  the 
purity  and  the  preservation  of  the  household ;  an  idea  which  was 
gradually  taken  up  into  the  life  of  the  whole  people  as  one  na- 
tional household,  the  eternal  fire  which  was  burning  on  the  altar 
of  the  Temple  of  Vesta,  expressing  both  the  nation's  worship  and 
its  integrity  and  perpetuity.  No  less  ethical  in  its  nature  was  the 
worship  of  Mars.  In  the  earlier  life  of  the  Romans,  when  agri- 
culture was  the  most  honorable  pursuit,  Mars  was  the  god  of  the 
pastures  and  the  fields  and  the  woods ;  hence,  the  god  of  spring ; 


506*  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

and  from  him  the  first  month  of  spring  had  its  name  as  the  Mars- 
month,  our  March,  and  to  him  in  early  spring  the  first  fruits  were 
brought,  both  from  the  fields  and  the  flocks.  But  gradually  the 
thought  of  his  presence  and  help  was  extended  from  the  labors  of 
man  in  tilling  the  soil  to  all  that  was  manly  in  human  life ;  and 
so,  just  as  the  word  virtus,  manliness,  came  to  be  used  by  the 
Koniaii  for  civil  or  for  military  service,  as  virtue  or  as  courage,  he 
was  for  the  citizen  the  god  of  peace,  and  for  the  soldier  the  god  of 
war.  Thus  it  was  that  the  place  of  all  manly  sports  as  well  as 
of  warlike  exercises  was  called  the  Campus  Martius,  or  the  Field  of 
Mars ;  and  the  more  the  Roman  genius  for  war  and  dominion  was 
developed,  the  more  predominant  became  this  martial  significance 
of  the  name  and  worship  of  this  god.  If  we  should  follow  out  this 
ethical  tendency  of  the  Roman  faith,  we  should  find  it  to  become 
a  kind  of  moral  Pantheon,  taking  into  itself,  as  deities,  personifica- 
tions of  all  human  virtues,  personal  and  social.  We  may  reach 
this  general  result  by  contrast  from  a  satirical  passage  of  Juve- 
nal, where  in  illustration  of  the  national  degeneracy  he  speaks  of 
the  well-nigh  divine  honors  paid  by  the  Romans  of  his  day  to 
riches :  "  Most  sacred  among  us,"  he  says,  "  is  the  majesty  of 
Riches ;  although,  destructive  Money,  thou  dwellest  not  yet  in  a 
temple,  no  shrines  have  we  yet  raised  to  thee,  like  those  in  which 
we  have  ever  worshiped  Peace  and  Good  Faith,  and  Victory  and 
Virtue,  and  Concord."  (Sat.  1. 112  seq.)  It  is  the  existence  of 
such  temples  reared  up  in  honor  of  exalted  virtues,  conceived  and 
adored  as  gods,  which  best  illustrates  the  practical  moral  charac- 
ter of  the  Romans,  and  goes  far  towards  explaining  their  great- 
ness and  their  power.  In  their  eyes  such  virtues  seemed  to  lift 
up  the  human  to  a  nearness  to  the  divine  nature,  and  to  give  to 
human  life  something  of  a  divine  meaning  and  worth.  So,  too, 
the  living  men  who  were  the  best  patterns  of  these  virtues,  the 
Manlii  and  the  Camilli,  the  Decii,  the  Curtii,  the  Curii  and  Fab- 
ricii,  these  were  the  Roman  heroes  of  their  generation,  and  they 
were  the  Roman  saints  for  all  after  generations  —  sancti  they 
were  just  as  truly  in  pagan  Latin  as  good  men  since  have  been  in 
Latin  of  Christian  times. 

But  in  the  worship  of  all  these  deities  the  Romans  were  given 
far  more  to  the  outward  services  of  religion  than  to  its  inward 
beliefs  and  sentiments.  A  people  born  for  action  rather  than  con- 
templation, for  duty  than  devotion,  for  law  and  precept  rather  than 
the  free  outgoings  of  emotion,  they  showed  this  legal  practical 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE   ROMANS.  507 

nature  especially  in  their  religion.  It  was  a  religion  which  cre- 
ated no  such  mythology  as  that  of  the  imaginative  Greeks ;  it  had 
no  power  to  create  a  religious  art  like  the  Greek,  and  to  fashion 
the  forms  of  the  gods  after  human  ideals ;  indeed  for  centuries 
the  Romans,  like  the  ancient  Germans,  used  no  images  whatever 
in  the  worship  of  their  gods.  Whatever  may  be  the  radical  mean- 
ing of  the  Latin  word  for  religion  (whether  from  leg  ere  or  ligare), 
the  religion  itself,  as  you  see  it  in  action,  is  the  observance  of 
ceremonies  of  worship  which  are  prescribed  by  a  binding  sense 
of  dependence  upon  the  will  and  rule  of  invisible  divine  powers. 
So  far  as  the  Romans  conceived  of  these  powers  as  moral  beings 
to  whom  they  had  a  conscious  moral  relation,  the  feeling  awak- 
ened was  a  sense  of  moral  obligation,  and  carried  with  it  that 
conscientious  regard  for  right  which  in  the  best  days  of  Rome 
was  a  chief  trait  of  Roman  character.  But  so  far  as  they  thought 
of  their  gods  only  as  supernatural  powers,  holding  to  them  no 
clear  relation  of  law,  but  controlling  in  some  mysterious  way  all 
their  fortunes,  their  religion  always  verged  to  superstition  ;  it  was 
a  sense  of  painful  restraint  rather  than  of  obligation ;  a  sense  of 
being  obliged,  from  fear,  to  perform  certain  acts  of  worship.  All 
about  them,  they  felt,  were  invisible  beings  in  the  heavens  and  in 
the  earth,  on  whom  they  were  of  necessity  dependent ;  they  must 
have  their  favor  and  their  help ;  and  to  this  end  they  must  be 
scrupulously  careful  not  only  to  keep  their  lives,  public  and  pri- 
vate, in  accord  with  the  will  of  these  supreme  powers,  by  the 
observance  of  all  that  was  required  by  their  sacred  books  and 
usages,  but  also  to  discern  in  the  phenomena  of  nature  indications 
of  the  same  divine  will,  and  to  follow  them  with  a  like  punctilious 
performance  of  appointed  sacred  rites.  Hence  we  find  in  the 
Roman  religion,  not  only  a  ceremonial  law,  hardly  less  various 
and  strict  than  the  Jewish,  a  ritualism  not  surpassed  in  compass 
and  minuteness  by  any  Christian  order  of  rites  and  forms, 
whether  Protestant  or  Catholic,  but  also  a  vast  and  cumbrous 
system  of  divination,  with  all  its  details  of  auspices,  portents,  and 
prodigies,  with  their  respective  sacrificial  appointments.  Quite 
numberless  were  all  these  ceremonial  appointments,  and  most 
exacting  their  observance,  as  the  Roman,  with  all  the  native  ear- 
nestness which  he  carried  into  every  outward  act  of  worship,  yet 
had  not  learned  to  measure  the  worth  of  divine  service  by  the  dis- 
positions of  the  heart  and  by  its  influence  upon  the  character. 
All  Roman  life,  private,  domestic,  and  public,  was  thus  strin- 


508  THE  RELIGION   OF  THE  ROMANS. 

gently  bound  and  held  in  a  vast  and  minute  network  of  observ- 
ance in  prayers,  libations,  and  sacrifices ;  in  domestic  life,  birth, 
betrothal,  marriage,  death,  as  well  as  the  daily  recurrence  of  morn- 
ing and  evening,  and  the  family  meals ;  and  in  public  life,  the 
enacting  of  laws,  the  election  of  magistrates  and  their  inaugura- 
tion, the  administration  of  justice,  declarations  of  war,  treaties  of 
peace  ;  all  these,  and  no  less  the  sports  and  games  of  the  people 
of  every  kind,  ever  went  on  as  under  the  eye  and  sanction  of  the 
gods,  and  were  scrupulously  observed  by  appointed  supplications 
and  gifts  and  offerings.  "When  we  contemplate  this  all-penetrat- 
ing ritual  of  the  Romans,  we  can  understand  how  their  writers  of 
every  generation  were  wont  to  celebrate  the  piety  of  their  fathers, 
and  also  how  the  early  Christian  writers,  less  conciliating,  perhaps 
less  just  than  the  Apostle  Paul  was  to  the  Athenians  when  he 
conceded  to  them  an  extreme  "  carefulness  in  religion,"  were  ever 
ready  to  denounce  with  vehement  rebukes  the  excessive  supersti- 
tion of  the  Romans.  In  the  performance  of  all  these  manifold 
religious  rites  nothing  was  left  to  the  disposition  or  the  will  of  the 
individual  worshiper  ;  all  was  determined  and  sanctioned  to  the 
last  particular  by  precept  and  usage.  The  Roman  sense  for  strict 
order  and  for  inviolable  statutes,  the  conservative  maintenance  of 
outward  form  and  of  inherited  traditions,  which  we  see  in  the 
rigid  discipline  of  their  arms,  in  the  orderly  course  of  govern- 
ment, and  in  the  compact  organism  of  the  civil  law,  is  no  less  con- 
spicuous as  a  native  controlling  force  in  religion.  Indeed,  the 
Roman  religion  was  a  positive  system  in  itself  and  its  applications 
as  truly  as  the  Roman  law ;  and  some  of  the  most  eminent  chief 
pontiffs  in  Roman  history  were  also  the  most  eminent  judges  and 
jurists  of  their  time.  Thus  the  services  of  religion  were  as  ex- 
actly prescribed  and  as  scrupulously  observed  as  the  rules  and 
statutes  of  law.  For  every  relation  and  every  event  in  life,  for 
every  season,  well-nigh  for  every  day  and  hour,  for  every  step 
which  one  could  take,  there  were  the  appointed  prayers  and  sacri- 
fices, or  the  consultation  in  due  form  of  the  proper  auspices ;  and 
if  in  any  way  the  worshiper  failed  to  follow  the  prescribed  form, 
even  if  it  were  an  involuntary  violation  or  omission,  the  whole  ser- 
vice was  not  only  nugatory,  but  might  bring  with  it  some  dreaded 
penalty.  The  sacrifice,  whether  for  an  individual,  a  family,  or 
for  the  state,  in  order  to  be  efficacious,  must  be  offered  in  exact 
accordance  with  the  pontifical  law ;  the  prayers,  which  were  as 
formal  as  the  formulas  of  jurisprudence,  must  be  said  in  the  very 


THE  RELIGION   OF  THE   ROMANS.  509 

words  in  which  they  were  written  in  the  sacred  books  ;  the  wor- 
shiper must  pray  with  the  exactest  recognition  of  the  name  of  the 
particular  deity  invoked  and  of  his  attributes  and  functions  ;  and 
for  the  surer  attainment  of  clearness  in  the  prayer  and  of  certainty 
in  the  answer  must  often  repeat  the  things  prayed  for  with  re- 
newed emphasis ;  and  it  was  literally  true  that  in  his  use  of  "  vain 
repetitions  "  he  thought  he  would  be  heard  for  his  "  much  speak- 
ing." A  ritual  system  so  minute  and  so  rigid  as  this  was  not 
only  a  yoke  that  could  not  be  borne,  but  it  was  simply  imprac- 
ticable in  the  real  life  of  the  people.  Hence,  in  some  of  its  parts, 
it  was*  directly  abated  of  its  severity  by  interpretations  of  the 
priests;  while  in  others,  like  all  kinds  of  formalism  and  super- 
stition which  insist  more  upon  the  letter  than  upon  the  spirit,  it 
allowed  various  casuistic  inventions  of  evasion  to  save,  in  name  at 
least,  the  integrity  of  a  sacred  ordinance,  which  in  reality  was 
broken.  An  illustration  of  the  former  of  these  classes  may  be 
drawn  from  the  relaxation  of  the  law  in  respect  to  holy  time. 
The  Roman  calendar  abounded  in  holy  seasons,  ferice  as  they  were 
called,  which  sometimes  lasted  for  several  days,  and  together  made 
requisition  upon  nearly  half  the  year.  On  such  days  not  only 
public  business  was  suspended,  but  the  people  were  enjoined  to 
abstain,  under  heavy  penalties,  from  all  work.  Such  an  injunc- 
tion bore  so  heavily  upon  the  interests  of  daily  life,  the  labors  of 
the  field,  and  all  kinds  of  trade  and  business,  that  it  needed  alle- 
viating decisions  from  the  pontiffs.  The  pontiff  Sca3vola,  on  being 
asked  what  work  might  be  done  on  a^  holy-day,  replied,  "  All  that 
cannot  be  neglected  without  injury  or  suffering,"  and  another 
pontiff  declared  that  all  work  was  allowed  which  was  needful  to 
supply  urgent  wants  of  life.  In  particular  the  people  were 
taught  that  if  an  ox  should  fall  into  a  pit  on  such  a  day  the 
owner  might  take  it  out,  or  if  a  house  was  liable  to  fall  down  it 
might  be  propped*  up  ;  and  so  of  many  other  cases  of  a  similar 
kind.  Thus  we  may  also  see  in  literature  that  Virgil  was  no 
heterodox  poet  when  he  taught  in  his  "  Georgics  "  that  even  on 
holy-days  alike  human  and  divine  laws  allowed  certain  works  to 
be  done.  No  religion,  he  says,  forbids  you  to  irrigate  the  fields, 
to  fence  in  the  corn,  to  snare  the  birds,  to  burn  out  brambles,  and 
plunge  the  bleating  flocks  in  the  health-giving  stream.  (I.  269.) 
But  we  find  in  Roman  history  the  mention  of  incidents  which  show 
us  how  scruples  of  conscience  were  sometimes  removed  by  quite 
evasive  expedients.  During  the  time  of  taking  the  auspices,  it  was 


510  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

indispensable  that  absolute  silence  should  be  observed,  and  the 
slightest  violation  even  by  the  utterance  of  a  word  was  enough  to 
vitiate  the  service.  It  is  told  of  Cato  the  censor  that  one  of  his 
attendants  had  broken  the  silence  while  he  as  augur  had  been 
taking  an  auspice,  and  that  he  replied :  "  But  I  was  not  aware  of 
it,  and  so  I  am  not  responsible ;  the  auspice  is  a  valid  one."  A 
more  singular  instance,  however,  of  an  evasion  of  the  augural  law 
is  related  by  Livy  of  the  consul  L.  Papirius,  The  Romans  were 
at  war  with  the  Samnites  ;  the  two  armies  were  near  one  another, 
and  the  consul  was  confident  of  victory  if  there  should  be  a  battle. 
The  soldiers  had  caught  the  contagious  enthusiasm  of  their  deader, 
and  were  clamoring  to  be  led  forth  to  the  fight.  Even  the  augur 
shared  the  general  ardor,  and  was  so  far  carried  away  by  it  that 
he  dared  to  falsify  the  auspices,  and  to  report  a  good  omen  to  the 
consul  when  he  knew  it  was  a  bad  one.  With  the  utmost  alacrity 
the  consul  gave  the  signal  for  battle.  Just  as  the  army  was  to 
march  out,  word  was  brought  to  a  young  officer,  the  consul's 
nephew,  that  there  was  something  wrong  about  the  auspices,  and 
that  he  must  report  it  to  the  consul.  The  youth,  of  whom  the 
historian  says  that  he  was  born  before  it  was  the  fashion  to  de- 
spise the  gods,  was  shocked  at  the  intelligence,  at  once  ascertained 
the  facts  in  the  case,  and  reported  them  to  the  commander-iu-chief . 
He,  however,  was  not  to  be  moved  from  his  purpose.  After 
applauding  his  nephew's  piety  and  fidelity,  he  decided  the  matter 
thus  :  "  That  is  now  the  augur's  affair.  If  he  has  lied,  he  will 
have  to  bear  the  penalty ;  as  for  me,  a  favorable  auspice  was  duly 
announced  to  me,  and  I  accept  it  as  such."  In  the  sequel,  the 
augur  was  the  first  man  killed  ;  but  the  Romans  carried  the  day, 
winning  a  brilliant  victory.  This  consul  could  appeal  to  a  pontiff's 
decision,  who  once  said  "  that  all  days  were  good  for  saving  one's 
life  and  the  honor  of  one's  country,"  words  which  remind  us  of 
Homer's  Hector,  who  also  when  on  the  battlefield  neglected  a  bad 
omen,  uttering  at  the  same  time  the  noble  sentiment,  "  The  one 
best  omen  is  to  fight  in  defense  of  your  country."  (Iliad,  12,  243.) 
A  religion  so  ceremonial  as  the  Roman,  and  entering  so  largely 
into  public  as  well  as  private  life,  might  give  to  a  modern  state  an 
ecclesiastical  character,  through  the  predominance  of  the  spiritual 
over  the  temporal  powers.  But  from  any  such  tendency  or  even 
its  possibility  the  Romans  were  preserved  by  their  native  genius 
for  government  and  the  consequent  ultimate  union  of  their  reli- 
gion with  their  state.  The  Roman  was  a  state  religion ;  and  it 


THE   RELIGION   OF  THE   ROMANS.  511 

was  such  in  the  sense  that  care  for  the  worship  of  the  gods  was 
just  as  much  the  business  of  the  state  as  care  for  the  administration 
of  justice  or  the  enactment  of  laws.  The  life  of  the  civitas,  or  com- 
munity of  citizens,  comprehended  in  it  things  human  and  things 
divine,  —  in  Roman  phrase,  res  humance  et  divince,  —  and  the 
government  for  both  was  one  and  the  same ;  and  as  the  life  of  the 
Romans  knew  no  body  of  citizens  as  religious  that  was  not  at  the 
same  time  political,  so  their  language  had  no  word  for  any  such 
body.  So  the  Roman  state  had  no  priestly  caste  and  knew  no  dis- 
tinction of  laity  and  clergy.  A  citizen  became  an  augur  or  a  pon- 
tiff, not  because  of  religious  knowledge  or  character,  but  just  as  he 
became  a  praetor  or  a  consul,  on  account  of  his  abilities  or  his  ser- 
vices in  peace  and  in  war ;  and  he  sat  in  the  Senate  or  presided 
over  it,  or  sat  on  the  bench  of  judges,  or  on  the  praator's  tribunal, 
in  the  same  way,  and  it  might  be  on  the  same  day  that  he  had  his 
seat  in  a  college  of  augurs  or  of  priests,  or  was  its  presiding  officer. 
This  practical  union  of  religion  with  politics  Cicero  commended 
as  a  marked  illustration  of  Roman  wisdom.  "  Our  ancestors,"  he 
says,  "  were  never  wiser  or  more  inspired  by  the  gods  than  when 
they  provided  that  the  same  persons  should  conduct  the  ceremo- 
nies of  religion  and  should  govern  the  Republic.  By  this  means 
it  is  that  our  magistrates  and  pontiffs,  discharging  their  functions 
with  like  wisdom,  unite  together  in  the  promotion  of  the  welfare 
of  the  Republic."  Yet  this  Roman  provision  developed  great  evils 
from  which  alike  religion  and  government  most  seriously  suffered, 
as  the  Roman  constitution  was  itself  developed  and  the  public  life 
became  more  complex  in  its  relations.  If  it  necessarily  excluded 
all  such  conflicts  of  church  and  state  as  are  known  to  modern 
times,  it  opened  far  worse  conflicts  of  political  parties  within  the 
state.  This  was  notably  illustrated  in  all  the  stages  of  that  mem- 
orable contest  of  the  plebeians  with  the  patricians  for  civil  and 
religious  equality.  In  all  this  contest  it  was  the  sanctions  of  the 
national  religion  which  the  patricians  employed,  especially  in  the 
taking  of  the  auspices,  to  keep  down  their  uprising  opponents. 
The  religious  as  well  as  the  civil  offices  were  only  held  by  the  pa- 
tricians ;  thus  from  the  augural  and  all  priestly  functions  the  ple- 
beians were  for  generations  excluded,  so  that  they  could  not  con- 
duct any  ceremonies  of  public  worship ;  a  plebeian  paterfamilias 
might  be  a  priest  for  his  own  household,  but  not  for  the  people  in 
the  temples.  A  very  vigorous  appeal  on  this  head  Livy  puts  in 
the  mouth  of  the  plebeian  orator  Publius  Decius  :  "  On  the  behalf 


512  THE  RELIGION   OF  THE  ROMANS. 

of  the  gods,  yet  more  than  on  our  own,  do  we  demand  that  we 
who  worship  the  gods  in  private  may  also  worship  them  in  pub- 
lic "  (X.  7).  We  have  to  remember  that  before  this  contest  be- 
gan the  gods  of  Rome  were  the  gods  of  the  patricians  alone,  for 
they  alone  were  the  Roman  populus  ;  and  for  an  alien  plebeian 
to  hold  office  and  as  a  magistrate  to  perform  any  religious  service 
or  as  augur  to  consult  the  divine  will,  was  to  the  patrician  no  less 
a  profanation  of  religion  than  a  violation  of  law.  Hence,  when 
the  plebeians  demanded  a  share  in  the  management  of  the  state, 
they  were  answered  as  in  the  name  of  religion :  "  How  can  you  be 
Roman  magistrates  ?  You  have  not  the  right  to  take  auspices,"  - 
auspida  non  habetis.  And  whenever  any  popular  law  was  to  come 
up  in  the  comitia,  some  augur  was  sure  to  find  the  signs  in  the 
heavens  inauspicious,  and  the  comitia  could  not  be  held.  Hard 
was  it  for  the  plebeians  to  keep  their  respect  for  a  religion  which 
in  its  working  was  a  monopoly  for  their  enemies,  and  the  patri- 
cians could  scarcely  be  sincere  in  its  service  when  they  were  con- 
scious of  using  it  for  their  own  exclusive  good.  The  whole  plebe- 
ian argument  in  this  contest  is  given  by  P.  Decius  in  the  speech 
from  which  I  just  quoted.  The  speech  belongs  to  the  year  300 
B.  c.  The  plebeians  had  already  won  all  the  civil  offices  and  now 
were  striving  for  admission  to  the  augurate  and  pontificate.  De- 
cius argued  the  plebeian  cause  against  Appius  Claudius,  the  most 
patrician  of  all  the  patricians.  He  dexterously  began  by  remind- 
ing the  people  how  his  plebeian  father  had  sacrificed  himself  for 
his  country  in  the  Latin  war.  "  Was  not  that  sacrifice,"  he  asked, 
"  just  as  pure  and  pious  to  the  gods  as  could  have  been  that  of  his 
patrician  colleague,  Titus  Manlius?  And  would  the  gods  give 
less  attention  now  to  my  prayers  than  of  my  colleague  Appius  ? 
Or  does  he  worship  the  gods  more  religiously  than  I  do  ?  "  The 
orator  then  ran  through  the  list  of  plebeians  who  had  well  won 
and  worn  the  honors  of  curule  office,  and  also  the  triumphal  crown 
and  laurel  wreath ;  "  and  shall  not  such  Romans  as  these  add  to 
their  honors  the  insignia  of  augurs  and  pontiffs  ?  "  Xhen  address- 
ing Appius  he  said :  "  Be  not  ashamed  to  have  a  man  your  col- 
league in  the  priesthood  who  may  be  your  colleague  as  a  censor 
or  a  consul.  Remember,  too,  that  the  first  Appius  Claudius,  the 
founder  of  your  house,  was  a  Sabine,  and  an  adventurer,  and  him 
the  patricians  of  that  day  admitted  to  their  number ;  do  not  then 
disdain  to  admit  us  into  the  number  of  your  priests.  Have  you 
never  heard  it  said  that  the  men  who  were  first  created  patricians 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS.  513 

were  not  beings  sent  down  from  heaven,  but  were  nothing  more 
than  free-born  men  ?  For  myself  I  can  say  more  than  that ;  for 
my  father  was  a  consul.  The  truth  is,  too  often  have  we  heard, 
and  too  often  have  we  answered,  this  argument  for  the  patrician 
rights  of  ancestry,  the  patrician  right  of  auspices ;  now  it  is  heard 
again,  and  again  refuted.  Romans,  I  vote  for  this  law  which  is 
to  give  the  plebeians  a  place  among  the  augurs  and  the  priests." 
The  law  was  carried  —  the  so-called  Apuleian  law  —  and  its  pas- 
sage made  at  last  of  the  two  orders  one  people,  and  united  in  their 
devotion  to  the  religious  as  well  as  the  civil  interests  of  their  com- 
mon country. 

Such  in  its  chief  features  was  the  religion  of  the  Romans  dur- 
ing more  than  four  centuries  of  their  history.  It  was  a  polythe- 
istic religion,  as  are  all  forms  of  nature-worship ;  it  was  born  with 
the  birth  of  the  Roman  people,  it  grew  with  its  growth,  it  flowed 
in  the  blood  of  the  national  life ;  it  was  a  religion  of  outward 
ceremonial  forms  rather  than  of  doctrines  ;  it  was  a  state  religion  ; 
it  had  in  it  a  large  mixture  of  superstition,  as  is  abundantly 
shown  by  the  list  of  prodigies  in  Livy's  annals,  continuously  re- 
corded as  religiously  recognized  and  expiated ;  it  was  not  without 
inhuman  practices,  as  is  manifest  from  the  occasional  offering  of 
human  sacrifices.  But  yet  it  had  in  the  heart  of  the  people  the 
power  of  a  real  faith.  They  believed  that  there  were  beings  in 
the  world  higher  and  better  than  themselves,  whom  they  called 
and  worshiped  as  gods ;  beings  to  whom  they  were  responsible, 
and  who  bound  them  to  a  strict  moral  account.  It  was  a  faith, 
too,  that  wrought  itself  into  the  life,  in  the  nurture  and  practice 
of  virtues  personal,  domestic,  and  national ;  first  of  all  in  that 
comprehensive  Roman  pietas,  or  sense  of  dutiful  feeling  and  con- 
duct towards  parents  and  country,  and  the  gods,  which  unfolded 
itself  into  filial  affection,  patriotism  and  piety  ;  and  then  in  hon- 
esty and  good  faith,  in  self-control  and  self-devotion,  in  frugality 
and  charity,  and  in  that  discipline  of  home  life,  so  finely  expressed 
by  the  Roman  word  mos  patrius  et  disciplines.  In  particular  it  is 
worthy  of  note  that  such  was  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  bond 
that  for  more  than  five  centuries  of  Roman  history  not  a  single 
example  of  divorce  occurred. 

In  passing  now  to  the  changes  which  came  in  upon  this  old  faith 
of  the  Romans,  I  wish  to  indicate  only  those  changes  which  it 
underwent  when  the  people,  hitherto  absorbed  only  in  politics  and 
war,  were  now  aroused  and  quickened  to  reflection  by  the  stimulat- 


614  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

ing  influence  of  Greek  literature,  and  especially  Greek  philosophy. 
As  early  as  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  war  we  discover  among  the 
Romans  some  knowledge  of  Greek  letters ;  but  fifty  years  later, 
after  the  decisive  victory  over  Hannibal,  and  the  subsequent  wars 
with  Macedonia  and  Greece,  began  that  extraordinary  intellectual 
movement  by  which  in  a  short  period  the  Romans  came  as  entirely 
under  the  intellectual  sway  of  Greece  as  Greece  came  under  the 
sway  of  Roman  arms,  when,  as  Horace  has  expressed  it  in  verse, 

"  Captive  Greece  took  captive  by  her  arts  her  rude  conqueror." 

This  dominant  influence  of  Greek  culture  was  profoundly  felt  by 
the  Roman  religion  in  the  new  religious  conceptions  embodied 
both  in  Greek  letters  and  Greek  art.  In  the  Greek  poets  the 
Romans  became  conversant  with  all  the  Olympic  deities  of  Greek 
mythology,  and  the  names  of  old  Roman  gods  were  mingled  with 
those  of  the  gods  of  Homer,  and  came  gradually  to  take  into 
them  those  unworthy  conceptions  of  deity  which  Plato  had  de- 
nounced as  unfit  for  any  place  in  education  in  his  ideal  republic. 
So  too,  Greek  art  represented  Greek  ideals  of  the  gods,  and  the 
Romans  could  not  be  familiar  with  the  forms  of  the  gods  in  the 
masterpieces  of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles  without  losing  something 
of  that  superhuman  idea  which  they  were  wont  to  attach  to  the 
gods  of  their  own  country.  But  a  far  more  direct  and  positive 
way  was  it  in  which  the  philosophy  of  the  Greeks  acted  upon  the 
old  Roman  faith.  For  purely  speculative  inquiries  the  Romans 
had  no  native  sense ;  as  has  been  wittily  said  \>y  Mommsen,  no- 
body in  Rome  was  given  to  speculation  but  the  bankers  and 
brokers.  The  Romans  measured  the  worth  of  philosophy,  as  of 
all  things  else,  by  its  practical  uses ;  attaching  no  importance  to 
philosophical  opinions  and  systems  which  were  remote  from  the 
interests  of  real  life ;  they  asked  of  philosophy,  and  asked  in  all 
earnestness,  to  teach  them  what  was  needful  for  the  formation  of 
character  and  the  conduct  of  life ;  what  were  the  real  blessings 
(vera  bona')  needful  to  human  welfare,  and  how  these  were  to  be 
attained.  And  it  was  exactly  this  more  practical  direction  which 
philosophy  had  taken  in  the  more  recent  Greek  schools  before 
its  introduction  at  Rome  ;  indeed,  still  earlier,  by  the  teachings  of 
Socrates,  as  we  find  it  in  some  of  the  Dialogues  of  Plato,  it  had 
been  brought  into  a  close  relation  to  religion  and  morals.  In  these 
Greek  schools,  too,  it  had  appeared  how  the  results  of  such  philo- 
sophical inquiries  were  at  variance  with  the  ideas  of  the  popular 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS.  515 

religion.  This  religion  held  to  the  plurality  of  the  gods  and  their 
likeness  to  men  ;  but  philosophy  was  ever  tending  to  the  doctrine  of 
one  ultimate  cause  of  all  things,  whether  impersonal  or  personal, 
nature  or  the  Supreme  Reason,  or  one  Supreme  Being  the  ultimate 
cause,  and,  if  personal,  a  being  far  above  all  human  forms  and  hu- 
man weaknesses.  The  religion  as  a  positive  system  necessarily  set 
the  utmost  value  upon  ceremonials,  upon  offerings  and  sacrifices, 
and  the  manifold  modes  of  discovering  the  divine  will ;  but  philo- 
sophy had  declared  by  Plato  and  his  successors  that  all  these  were 
of  little  worth,  in  comparison  with  moral  dispositions  and  conduct. 
But  Greek  philosophy  made  its  way  into  Roman  thought  and 
action  not  without  serious  conflict  between  those  Romans  who 
were  conservative  in  their  national  views  and  those  who  were 
liberal,  or,  as  we  may  distinguish  them,  the  Romans  of  the  old 
and  Romans  of  the  new  school ;  the  former  represented  by  such 
men  as  Cato  the  censor,  and  the  other  by  the  two  Scipios,  the 
elder  Africanus  and  the  younger.  A  signal  illustration  of  this 
conflict  is  furnished  by  the  reception  at  Rome  of  the  Athenian 
embassy  in  the  year  186  B.  c.,  composed  of  Carneades  of  the  New 
Academy,  Critolaus  the  Peripatetic,  and  Diogenes  the  Stoic. 
These  men,  though  professed  philosophers,  yet  had  come  only  on  a 
political  mission ;  but  this  once  executed,  they  took  advantage  of 
their  visit  to  the  great  metropolis  to  deliver  lectures  on  philosophi- 
cal themes.  These  lectures  created  in  Roman  society  an  immense 
but  a  very  divided  interest.  Young  Rome  was  at  once  fascinated 
and  profoundly  impressed  by  the  strange  eloquence  in  word  and 
thought  of  these  learned  Greeks,  by  the  vigor  and  no  less  the 
sophistries  of  their  logic,  and  by  the  consummate  finish  of  their 
delivery ;  but  older  and  graver  men  looked  on  and  listened  with 
misgivings  and  at  times  with  ill  suppressed  mutterings  of  discon- 
tent, and  when  at  last  Carneades,  in  the  singular  judicial  style  of 
his  skepticism,  discoursed  one  day  against  justice,  with  no  less 
convincing  force  than  the  day  before  he  had  discussed  in  its  favor, 
when  he  proved  that  justice  was  no  virtue,  but  only  a  matter  of 
social  compact,  the  sturdy  Censor  Cato  employed  all  the  authority 
of  his  office  as  of  his  age  and  experience  against  such  pernicious 
teaching,  and  carried  a  decree  by  a  large  vote  in  the  senate,  that 
these  "  philosophical  ambassadors  have  an  answer  and  a  polite  dis- 
missal from  the  city  as  soon  as  possible."  But  right  as  was  Cato 
in  the  action,  both  in  patriotism  and  in  morals,  yet  he  was  behind 
the  times  in  the  resistance  he  had  hitherto  made  to  all  Greek  cul- 


516  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

ture ;  and  it  is  the  best  of  all  evidence  of  this  truth,  that  he  him- 
self at  length  gave  up  his  resistance  with  as  good  grace  as  his 
rough  but  honest  nature  allowed,  and  became  in  his  old  age  a 
zealous  student  of  the  Greek  language  and  its  great  writers. 
There  were  three  schools  of  Greek  thought,  which  through  their 
native  masters  and  their  Roman  disciples  gained  a  decisive  hold 
upon  the  Roman  mind  —  the  Epicurean,  the  Academic,  and  the 
Stoic ;  the  last  two  represented  in  the  Athenian  embassy  just 
mentioned,  the  Academic  by  Carneades  and  the  Stoic  by  Dioge- 
nes ;  and  these  schools,  though  holding  different  views,  were  yet 
all  adverse  in  their  influence  to  the  Roman  religion. 

The  Academic  school  had  undergone  many  revolutions  of  opin- 
ion since  the  time  of  Plato,  its  original  founder ;  and  it  counted 
now  among  its  adherents  men  of  different  views.  Plato,  through 
his  strong  bias  to  a  monotheistic  faith,  had  insisted  that  the  popu- 
lar religion  needed  a  radical  reformation,  which  should  purge  it  of 
its  immoral  influences.  But  Carneades,  carrying  to  the  utmost  lim- 
its the  principle  of  his  school,  that  nothing  could  be  comprehended 
and  nothing  could  be  known,  subjected  to  a  negative  criticism  not 
only  the  conceptions  of  popular  faith,  but  all  the  theological  proofs 
of  the  philosophers  for  the  existence  of  the  gods.  More  positive, 
however,  and  nearer  to  Plato,  were  later  masters  in  this  school,  as 
Antiochus  and  Philo,  who  were  favorite  teachers  of  Cicero  and 
other  distinguished  Romans  in  their  youthful  studies.  It  is  in  the 
writings  of  Cicero,  who  more  than  any  one  else  brought  the  Ro- 
mans into  acquaintance  with  Greek  philosophy,  that  we  have  the 
best  illustration  of  this  return  in  the  later  schools  to  the  teachings 
of  Plato.  While  in  some  of  his  dialogues  Cicero  presents  in  all 
their  force  the  objections  which  the  masters  of  the  New  Academy 
had  raised  against  all  positive  theology,  yet  for  himself  he  utters 
in  clearest  tone  his  faith  in  the  existence  of  God,  as  the  Supreme 
Creator  and  Ruler  of  all  beings  and  all  things,  and  in  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul.  Faith  in  God,  he  contends,  is  implanted  in 
the  spirit  of  man;  it  is  taught  by  all  the  phenomena  of  the 
world  in  nature  and  in  history,  it  is  also  practically  indispensable, 
as  alone  forming  the  moral  basis  of  human  society.  Difficult  was 
it  for  Cicero,  with  his  enlightened  views,  to  uphold,  though  a 
statesman,  the  state  religion  of  his  country ;  quite  impossible  for 
him,  though  a  leading  member  of  the  august  augural  college,  to 
lend  even  the  show  of  a  belief  to  the  Roman  theory  and  practice 
of  augury.  We  cannot  doubt  that  in  the  merciless  denunciation 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS.  517 

by  one  of  the  speakers  in  his  Dialogues  on  "  Divination "  of  all 
forms  of  soothsaying,  he  meant  to  record  his  own  belief  that  the 
whole  system  had  quite  lost  out  of  it  the  old  faith  in  indications 
of  nature  of  the  divine  will,  and  now  was  subserving  the  pur- 
posed ends  of  politics,  or  with  the  many  to  satisfy  the  blind  crav- 
ings of  superstition.  Like  Cotta  in  the  Dialogue  on  the  "  Nature 
of  the  Gods,  "he  was  attached  to  the  popular  faith  not  by  religious 
but  only  by  patriotic  and  political  considerations.  It  was  the 
Roman  religion,  the  national  religion  ;  it  was  the  religion  of  the 
people,  and  whatever  there  might  be  wrong  or  false  in  it,  better 
was  it  for  the  people  than  irreligion  or  no  religion  at  all.  The 
opposition  to  superstition  which  Cicero  and  other  Romans  brought 
with  them  from  the  Academy  was  extended  by  the  Epicureans  to 
all  religion  itself,  through  their  denial  of  the  fundamental  beliefs 
of  religion,  a  Divine  Providence  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
The  Epicureans  had  a  place  in  their  system,  hardly  definable 
however  or  intelligible,  for  beings  whom  they  called  gods  ;  beings 
not  superhuman  in  nature,  but  rather  human  beings  of  an  exalted 
rank ;  beings  living  in  undisturbed  repose  far  away  from  earth  in 
some  unknown  intermundial  spaces,  and  having,  as  the  very  ele- 
ment of  their  blessedness,  exemption  from  all  providential  rule, 
all  oversight  or  even  knowledge  of  human  affairs.  Such  a  deistic 
view  of  the  gods  the  Epicurean  teachers  deemed  to  be  essential  to 
the  welfare  of  men,  inasmuch  as  it  freed  them  from  superstitious 
fears  of  divine  agency  and  of  death  and  future  retribution.  Many 
were  the  Romans  who  were  attached  to  the  Epicurean  school,  not 
so  much  from  a  real  knowledge  of  its  teachings  as  from  an  indif- 
ference to  all  higher  human  interests  and  from  a  fondness  for  a 
life  of  ease  and  freedom  from  restraint ;  but  it  found  in  Lucre- 
tius a  diligent  and  intelligent  student,  and  in  his  poem  a  valuable 
exposition  and  application  of  its  principles,  no  less  poetic  than 
scientific.  Adopting  the  Epicurean  physics,  Lucretius  conceived 
the  world  in  its  origin  and  its  government  as  only  the  result  of 
mechanical  agency,  and  the  soul  of  man  as  material  and  mortal 
as  his  body,  and  bounded  in  its  being  by  its  brief  earthly  exist- 
ence, and,  true  to  the  Epicurean  ethics,  he  carried  out  his  applica- 
tions of  his  physical  principles  with  a  strict  logical  consequence, 
and  enforced  them  with  a  passionate  earnestness,  convinced  that 
only  by  such  a  philosophy  could  man  be  rid  of  his  enslaving  fears 
of  the  gods  and  of  death.  Religion  he  deemed  to  be  the  chief  foe 
of  man,  and  Epicurus  he  lauds  as  the  greatest  human  benefactor, 


518  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

in  that  by  teaching  the  true  knowledge  of  nature  he  wrought  out 
man's  deliverance  and  happiness.  How  different  in  all  his  think- 
ing and  feeling  is  Lucretius'  contemporary,  the  poet  Virgil,  —  how 
different  all  his  poetry  in  its  religious  interpretation  of  nature 
and  human  life !  Virgil  is  the  worthiest  illustration  of  his  own 
expression,  the  pius  vates,  and  his  poetry  the  best  expression  of 
the  best  religious  thought  of  his  country  and  age.  Endowed  no 
less  than  Lucretius  with  a  poet's  sense  for  all  that  is  grand  and 
beautiful  in  the  outward  world,  and  with  a  poet's  sympathy  with 
all  the  mystery  of  man's  life  and  being,  yet  unlike  the  philosophic 
poet  he  discerns  in  all  natural  phenomena  a  beneficent  divine 
agency,  and  in  the  nature  and  the  world  of  man  he  recognizes  the 
superiority  of  the  soul  and  all  that  is  spiritual  to  the  bodily  and 
the  material,  and  above  and  in  the  midst  of  all  human  beings 
and  human  affairs,  the  presence  of  the  supreme  %  Spiritual  Power, 
guiding  and  controlling  all  in  the  interests  of  truth  and  mercy. 
While  Lucretius  breaks  with  the  Roman  and  with  all  religion, 
Virgil  clings  to  the  instinctive  religious  convictions  of  his  country 
and  of  mankind,  while  he  seeks  to  unite  them  with  the  more  en- 
lightened sentiments  of  his  own  time.  In  his  pastoral  poetry  he 
is  in  sympathy  with  the  piety  of  the  shepherds  which  looks  up- 
ward in  thankfulness  for  the  protection  of  their  flocks  as  they 
wander  by  the  woods  and  the  hillsides ;  in  his  "  Georgics,"  while 
he  seeks  to  revive  the  old  Roman  love  of  the  land  and  of  the 
toils  of  rural  life,  he  aims  to  awaken  in  the  struggling  and  hardy 
tillers  of  the  soil  some  devout  sense  of  their  calling  by  showing 
how  it  is  in  the  order  of  Providence  that  man,  by  his  labor,  should 
have  dominion  over  the  earth,  and  how  by  such  labor  man  best 
fulfills  his  duty  and  promotes  his  welfare.  And  in  his  crowning 
national  poem  he  teaches  his  countrymen  and  their  august  prince, 
at  every  stage  of  the  Roman  annals  which  he  records  in  his  verse, 
that  this  great  structure  of  government,  though  built  up  by  the 
human  hands  of  many  generations,  was  all  appointed  and  guided 
by  divine  decree  for  the  peace  and  good  order  of  the  world.  And 
in  the  views  disclosed  in  the  sixth  book  of  this  poem,  of  the  world 
to  come  —  of  the  Tartarus  of  the  lost  and  the  Elysian  abodes  of 
the  blest  —  how  clear  and  impressive  are  the  conceptions  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  and  of  a  spiritual  life  after  death,  of  the 
everlasting  distinction  between  a  righteous  and  an  unrighteous  life, 
and  of  a  final  award  to  men  of  happiness  or  misery  according  to 
the  deeds  done  in  the  body.  How  Roman  and  how  human  are 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS.  519 

the  two  classes  of  lives  and  characters  to  which  are  respectively 
assigned  everlasting  punishment  and  eternal  life ;  in  the  one,  haters 
of  brothers  and  fathers,  men  without  natural  affection,  men  guilty 
of  unnatural  crimes,  greedy  and  selfish  misers,  traitors,  and  be- 
trayers of  masters  and  friends ;  in  the  other,  such  as  martyrs  for 
their  country's  cause,  holy  priests,  pious  poets,  and  benefactors  of 
their  kind. 

We  have  now  only  to  consider  the  relations  to  the  Roman  reli- 
gion of  the  last  of  the  three  schools  of  philosophy  which  I  have 
named,  —  the  philosophy  of  the  Stoics.  There  was  a  religious 
and  theological  tone  in  the  Stoic  philosophy  which  set  it  in  marked 
contrast  to  the  Epicurean.  While  the  Epicureans  conceived  of 
gods  removed  from  all  concern  with  the  world,  the  Stoics  on  the 
contrary  believed  the  world  of  nature  and  of  man  to  be  under 
the  continuous  agency  and  the  providential  rule  of  a  supreme 
spiritual  power ;  and  in  opposition  to  the  polytheism  of  the 
Greek  as  of  the  Roman  popular  faith,  they  believed  this  supreme 
power  to  be  one  divine  being,  whom  they  called,  in  the  panthe- 
istic spirit  of  their  school,  the  Soul  of  the  Universe ;  and  so 
far  as  they  gave  the  name  of  gods  to  the  forces  of  nature,  they 
thought  of  them  only  as  single  manifestations  of  the  one  Deity. 
They  also  attached  no  worth  to  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  Roman 
worship,  insisting  that  the  true  divine  service  consisted  in  the 
devout  knowledge  of  God  and  in  a  pious  and  moral  life.  Yet 
the  Stoic  teachers  were  far  from  rejecting  with  the  Epicureans  the 
popular  religion  as  mere  superstition,  or  from  fearing  its  influence 
upon  human  welfare.  They  held,  in  the  religious  spirit  that  was 
native  to  their  whole  manner  of  thinking,  that  a  true  fear  of  the 
gods  and  a  spirit  of  sincere  worship  might  dwell  in  the  most  unen- 
lightened and  even  ignorant  minds  ;  and  that  an  abandonment  of 
the  traditional  religion  and  its  worship  might  carry  away  with  it 
all  the  sanctions  of  private  and  public  morality.  Generally  and 
briefly  stated,  these  were  the  chief  Stoic  views  which  came  into 
close  relation  to  the  religion  of  the  Romans,  and  they  were 
taught  especially  by  Pana3tius,  who  lived  in  Rome  many  years, 
was  the  founder  of  Roman  Stoicism,  and  counted  among  his  dis- 
ciples and  personal  friends  such  Romans  as  the  younger  Scipio 
and  his  friend  Lselius  arid  the  other  choice  spirits  of  that  literary 
and  philosophical  circle  of  which  those  eminent  men  were  the  cen- 
tral figures.  In  his  early  years  a  contemporary  of  these  men,  but 
in  his  illustrious  public  career  belonging  to  the  next  generation, 


620  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

was  Quintus  Mucius  Scaevola,  the  first  Roman  who,  as  a  thinker 
and  a  writer,  subjected  the  religion  of  his  country  to  a  free 
criticism  on  the  basis  of  Stoic  principles.  It  was  Scsevola  who 
originated  at  Rome  the  threefold  view  of  religion  which  was 
afterwards  more  fully  unfolded  and  defended  by  the  celebrated 
Terentius  Varro,  known  in  Roman  literature  as  the  most  learned 
of  the  Romans.  This  view  represented  religion  as  the  poetical  or 
mythical,  the  philosophical,  and  the  political.  Of  the  first  his 
negative  opinion  was  as  pronounced  as  that  of  Plato  of  the  Greek 
mythology ;  it  was  full  of  unworthy  conceptions  of  the  Deity,  in 
that  it  ascribed  to  the  gods  in  quality  and  in  action  what  was 
not  only  unworthy  of  men  as  such,  but  could  be  true  only  of  the 
worst  and  most  contemptible.  The  philosophical  was  entirely 
free  from  such  faults,  but  it  was  unfitted  for  popular  uses,  and  at 
variance  with  the  practical  purposes  of  religion ;  it  contained  in  it 
much  that  was  either  unintelligible  or  might  easily  be  half  under- 
stood or  misunderstood,  and  so  hurtful  in  practice.  The  third 
view,  or  the  political,  looked  at  the  popular  faith  as  a  state  institu- 
tion, to  be  defended  and  upheld,  apart  from  the  truth  either  of  doc- 
trine or  of  worship,  simply  on  the  ground  of  political  expediency. 
As  Varro  put  this  view,  the  religion  of  the  nation  must  be  taught 
and  observed,  however  faulty  and  even  false  ;  it  is  indispensable 
as  an  institution  of  the  state  and  for  the  stability  and  good  order 
of  society.  These  opinions  were  doubtless  derived  from  Panae- 
tius,  and  are  quite  in  harmony  with  Stoic  utterances  of  the  masters 
of  the  school,  both  Grecian  and  Roman.  But  they  had  a  quite 
peculiar  significance  as  taught  by  Scasvola.  He  was  not  only  a 
distinguished  statesman,  and,  as  Cicero  describes  him,  the  most 
eloquent  of  jurists  and  also  the  most  learned  jurist  of  the  orators, 
but  he  was  also  the  Pontifex  Maximus,  the  ecclesiastical  primate 
of  Rome,  and  so  the  chief  authority  as  well  as  magistrate  in  all 
matters  of  religious  faith  and  practice.  Yet  by  no  one  was  he 
ever  charged  with  heresy  or  heterodoxy;  he  was  unmolested  in 
his  office  and  in  all  his  public  dignities,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life 
was  in  fame  as  he  was  in  character  a  man  of  the  highest  integrity 
and  virtue.  In  substantial  agreement  with  these  opinions  were 
some  of  the  best  as  well  as  the  most  enlightened  of  the  Romans 
in  the  last  century  of  the  republic  ;  as  thinking  men  they  had 
lost  faith  in  the  national  religion,  but  as  conservative  and  patriotic 
Roman  citizens  they  could  still  defend  it  and  practice  its  rites.  In 
the  early  empire,  the  Stoic  thought,  with  its  application  to  reli- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS.  521 

gion,  drew  to  it  more  and  more  the  ablest  as  well  as  the  most 
thoughtful  and  noblest  of  the  Romans  ;  in  the  midst  of  the  calami- 
ties which  fell  upon  Roman  life,  with  the  incoming  of  imperial 
power  and  despotic  rule,  for  such  men  Stoicism  was  the  best  reli- 
gion they  knew,  and  in  its  pure  conceptions  of  Deity  and  more 
liberal  views  of  humanity  they  found  sources  of  strength  and  of 
consolation  and  hope.  Their  teacher,  the  representative  teacher  of 
this  Roman  Stoicism,  was  the  philosopher  Seneca.  The  theology 
of  this  philosopher  was  so  pure  and  so  true,  his  conception  of  God 
so  clearly  and  justly  embodies  the  attributes  of  wisdom,  goodness, 
mercy,  and  love,  and  in  the  religion  he  teaches  he  dwells  so  ear- 
nestly upon  the  pious  dispositions  of  the  heart  and  the  subjection 
of  the  will  to  truth  and  right,  in  short  so  Christian  were  his  senti- 
ments and  language,  that  both  in  modern  as  well  as  in  ancient 
times  it  has  been  believed,  though  on  no  sufficient  evidence  or 
reason,  that  he  was  directly  indebted  to  Christianity  for  his  ethical 
and  religious  ideas.  Hence,  too,  he  was  so  often  claimed  as  a 
Christian  by  the  early  fathers,  in  the  expression  they  used  of  him 
as  "  noster  Seneca"  The  doctrines  and  spirit  of  Seneca  were 
quite  at  variance  with  faith  in  the  prevailing  rites  and  beliefs 
of  the  Roman  religion ;  and  this  variance  he  expressed  in  his 
writings  with  the  utmost  freedom.  Especially  did  he  condemn 
the  fables  of  the  poets  concerning  Jupiter  and  the  other  Olym- 
pian deities  ;  and  he  rejected  with  scorn  the  ignoble  crowd  of  gods, 
as  he  expressed  it  (ignobilis  deorum  turbo),  which  had  poured 
into  Rome  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  In  like  manner  he  con- 
demns the  use  of  images  in  worship  and  of  all  the  sacrifices  in  the 
temples.  "  The  images"  he  says,  "  people  adore  ;  why  not  rather 
adore  the  artisans  who  fashioned  them  ;  people  smile  at  the  sport- 
ive plays  of  children,  but  they  are  dealing  with  just  such  plays 
all  their  life  long,  and  in  the  most  serious  matters  that  can  pos- 
sibly concern  mortal  men."  And  thus  he  speaks  of  sacrifices: 
"  How  are  the  gods  worshiped  ?  With  slaughtered  victims,  as  if 
the  gods  delighted  in  the  blood  of  innocent  beasts.  The  true  wor- 
ship is  of  the  heart.  You  need  not,"  he  says,  "  go  to  the  temples 
to  seek  God  ;  God  is  near  you,  he  is  around  you,  he  is  in  you. 
Not  temples  of  stone  let  us  rear  up  to  his  service,  but  rather  the 
sanctuary  of  the  heart ;  let  us  not  serve  him  with  the  blood  of 
victims,  but  with  pure  sentiments  and  right  purposes.  To  know 
and  be  like  God,  that  is  the  best  divine  service."  Similar  were 
the  teachings  of  the  later  Roman  Stoics,  and  especially  of  Epic- 
tetus  and  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 


522  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

From  the  historical  sketch  which  I  have  thus  drawn,  however 
imperfectly,  it  clearly  appears  that  in  the  early  period  of  the 
empire,  the  enlightened  and  educated  mind  of  Rome  was  now  quite 
estranged  from  the  old  fast-decaying  national  faith.  But  it  was 
an  inevitable  result  of  this  estrangement  that  this  faith  should 
gradually  lose  its  hold  upon  the  humbler  and  ignorant  classes  of 
the  people,  and  be  unable  to  maintain  itself  in  their  life  against 
the  manifold  polytheistic  beliefs  and  rites  which  were  imported 
into  Rome  from  all  parts  of  the  East ;  and  all,  incongruous  and 
contradictory  as  they  were,  became  strangely  incorporated  into  the 
national  worship.  So  it  is  that  superstition  makes  willing  cap- 
tives and  victims  of  individuals  and  nations  who  have  lost  or 
abandoned  their  religion.  Such  a  bewildering  maze  and  confusion 
finally  came  into  Roman  worship  that  we  find  the  satirical  poets 
and  even  grave  writers  sadly  complaining  that  it  was  impossible 
for  the  people  to  know  what  gods  to  address  in  their  prayers,  and 
that  they  were  compelled  to  address  many  in  succession,  and  some- 
times at  the  end  to  add  the  saving  clause,  "  and  any  other  god  or 
goddess  not  yet  named."  And  yet  out  of  this  chaos  of  "  gods  many 
and  lords  many  "  there  was  emerging  that  monotheistic  faith,  in 
its  national  origin  also  from  the  East,  which,  even  while  confined 
within  its  rigid  Jewish  limitations,  was  already  winning  con- 
verts in  Rome  itself,  as  in  different  parts  of  the  empire,  and  was 
erelong,  in  the  Christianity  of  which  it  had  been  the  prophet  and 
the  precursor,  to  become  the  faith  of  the  world.  Not  however 
from  Rome,  with  all  its  tendencies  to  universality,  was  the  destined 
being  and  sway  of  this  faith  ;  not  from  the  Roman  race,  not  forth 
from  the  proud  Roman  capital,  was  it  to  issue  on  its  peaceful  tri- 
umphant career.  Already  from  out  the  most  despised  of  all  the 
Roman  subject  races,  from  the  pettiest  of  all  Roman  subject  prov- 
inces, had  it  arisen  into  being ;  it  was  coming  onward,  not  like  a 
worldly  power,  with  observation;  but  as  the  kingdom  of  God, 
silently,  gradually,  but  irresistibly  as  a  divine  spiritual  force. 
And  yet,  for  the  Christian  faith  erelong  to  be  the  established 
faith  of  the  empire,  the  Roman  religion  had  been  preparing  the 
way,  alike  by  what  was  good  in  it  and  what  was  bad ;  by  the  evil 
that  needed  to  be  corrected  or  eradicated,  and  the  good  that 
needed  to  be  purified,  and  by  the  yearning  for  the  true  though 
unknown  God  which  it  expressed,  and  which  needed  to  be  fully 
satisfied.  And  a  far  greater  service  of  preparation  had  it  been 
given  Rome  to  render :  by  her  genius  for  conquest,  assimilation, 


THE   RELIGION   OF  THE  ROMANS.  523 

and  dominion  she  had  made  one  people  of  all  the  peoples  of  the 
earth,  so  many,  so  diverse ;  and  by  her  universal  speech,  and 
law,  and  government  she  had  united  all  nations  in  one  world- 
community,  the  one  civilized  world,  of  which  Christianity  was  to 
be  the  one  universal  religion. 


OLD  AGE. 

WRITTEN   FOE   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,  APRIL    13,  1883. 

I  HAVE  been  reading  this  term  with  one  of  my  classes  Cicero's 
"  De  Senectute,"  and  I  have  been  impressed  more  than  ever  before 
with  the  worth  of  this  Latin  essay,  in  the  justness  of  its  senti- 
ments and  in  the  finish  of  its  diction.  The  tone  is  cheerful  and 
genial,  and  yet  calm  and  serious  ;  the  argument  for  age  moves  on 
at  times  with  a  moderate  concession,  but  mostly  with  a  happy  in- 
genuity and  glowing  fervor  of  defense.  It  is  Roman  in  its  good 
sense  and  sober,  practical  spirit ;  it  is  Ciceronian  in  the  fullness 
and  richness  of  its  ideas  and  illustrations,  and  it  is  human  and 
humane  in  all  its  views  of  man's  life  and  destiny.  I  have  been 
so  much  interested  in  this  reading  of  it,  and  more  now  than  in 
earlier  years  perhaps,  from  a  rather  natural  increase  of  fellow- 
feeling  with  the  writer,  that  I  have  abandoned  a  subject  in  which 
I  had  made  some  progress,  and  decided  to  bring  to  you  now  some 
account  of  the  origin  and  conduct  of  this  work  of  Cicero,  with 
some  reflections  on  the  theme  which  it  discusses. 

I  need  not  unfold  in  detail  the  plan  and  contents  of  this  Latin 
classic,  with  which  you  are  all  probably  familiar.  Who  indeed  has 
not  read  it  ?  Who  can  read  without  instruction  and  delight  what 
is  taught  in  it  on  a  subject  of  universal  human  interest  by  a 
thoughtful  and  cultivated  Roman,  the  greatest  orator  and  the 
most  accomplished  scholar  of  his  country,  and  one  of  her  chief 
statesmen,  when,  at  the  close  of  an  exceptionally  long  and  hon- 
ored career  in  the  great  Roman  world,  with  the  downfall  of  the 
constitution  and  of  liberty,  public  life  in  the  old  Roman  sense 
now  no  longer  existing,  and  all  the  grand  scenes  of  its  ambitions, 
its  toils,  and  its  honors  now  vanished  forever,  he  betook  himself  to 
the  seclusion  of  his  villas,  to  find  diversion  and  solace  in  occupa- 
tion of  thought  and  composition,  with  themes  of  supreme  interest  in 
ethics  and  religion.  It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  Cicero 
wrote  in  the  last  two  years  of  his  life  his  "  De  Natura  Deorum," 
"  De  Divinatione,"  "  De  Officiis,"  and  the  two  companion  essays 
the  "  De  Amicitia,"  and  the  "  De  Senectute."  In  dedicating  to 


OLD  AGE.  525 

his  life-long  friend  Atticus  this  last  work,  —  with  which  we  have 
now  to  do,  —  Cicero  mentions  the  disordered  state  of  public  af- 
fairs as  a  cause  of  anxious  distress  to  them  both,  for  which  at  an- 
other time  he  would  offer  his  friend  some  consolation ;  and  then 
gives  as  the  immediate  motive  of  the  present  work  his  desire 
to  lighten  for  both  of  them  the  burden  of  age,  of  the  pressure  of 
which,  or  at  least  of  its  near  approach,  they  were  already  con- 
scious ;  adding  that  when  he  first  purposed  to  write  on  old  age, 
Atticus  immediately  occurred  to  him  as  one  worthy  of  a  gift 
which  both  friends  might  use  with  common  advantage.  I  might 
perhaps,  in  bringing  a  discussion  of  this  subject  to  the  Club,  plead 
to  some  extent  a  like  motive ;  for  some  of  us  I  suppose  are  already 
at  the  mature  age  which  Cicero  and  Atticus  had  then  reached,  and 
others  may  descry  it  at  least  approaching  from  whatever  distance  ; 
and  the  youngest  of  our  number  may  be  drawn  to  it,  with  even 
some  desire,  by  reading  and  discussing  Cicero's  book,  if  Mon- 
taigne's word  of  it  be  true,  that  "  it  gives  one  an  appetite  for 
growing  old"  (il  donne  Vappetit  de  meillir). 

The  setting  of  the  discourse,  in  the  choice  of  the  principal 
speaker  and  of  his  younger  friends,  was  very  happily  conceived  and 
wrought  out  by  the  writer.  In  this  respect  the  Roman  improved 
upon  a  similar  work  in  Greek  by  the  philosopher  Aristo  of  Ceos, 
to  which  he  alludes  in  the  introduction,  though  we  have  no  means 
of  further  comparison,  as  the  Greek  work  has  not  come  down  to 
us.  Aristo,  in  his  Greek  fondness  for  the  poetic,  and  perhaps 
in  his  philosophic  depreciation  of  age,  had  given  his  discourse  in 
the  person  of  the  mythic  Tithonus,  for  Tithonus,  as  the  poets 
had  sung,  had  been  loved  in  his  youthful  bloom  by  the  goddess 
Aurora,  who  had  prayed  and  won  for  him  from  Jove  the  gift 
of  perpetual  life ;  but,  alas  for  her  unwisdom !  she  had  forgotten 
to  ask  for  a  life  of  perpetual  youth  ;  so  that  when  Tithonus  had 
passed  far  beyond  his  prime,  he  lived  on,  to  be  sure,  but  worn  and 
ever  wasting  in  the  decrepitude  of  never-ending  age.  But  Cicero, 
with  a  fine  human  and  Roman  sense,  chose  for  his  fittest  speaker 
to  discourse  upon  age  an  historical  person,  a  typical  Roman,  Mar- 
cus Porcius  Cato,  who  had  been  conspicuous  in  youth  and  in  man- 
hood for  all  high  qualities  and  achievements  of  Roman  character 
and  life,  and  in  old  age  itself  distinguished  above  all  his  fellows, 
and  who  had  died  at  85,  his  faculties  strong  to  the  last  year,  "  his 
eye  not  dimmed  nor  his  natural  force  abated."  He  was  of  an  old 
family  of  the  Porcian  gens,  but  the  first  of  that  gens  to  be  called 


526  OLD   AGE. 

Cato,  an  old  Sabine  word  for  practical  wisdom  (eatas),  a  quality 
expressed  later  by  the  Latin  title  which  was  given  him  of  Sapiens, 
and  which  Cicero  says  he  always  had  as  a  kind  of  cognomen.  He 
is  known  as  Cato  Major,  in  distinction  from  his  descendant  the 
inflexible  Cato  Minor  or  Uticensis,  of  Caesar's  time.  He  had  also 
the  title  of  Censor,  from  the  fidelity  with  which  he  discharged 
the  duties  of  the  censorship.  Though  averse  in  his  earlier  years 
to  Greek  philosophy  and  culture,  yet  when  past  sixty  he  became  a 
zealous  student  of  Greek  and  its  great  writers.  At  the  age  of 
eighty-one,  when  accused  by  an  enemy  of  some  charge,  the  nature 
of  which  is  not  recorded,  he  defended  himself  with  full  voice  and 
unbroken  strength.  In  the  last  year  of  his  life,  he  conducted  a 
prosecution  against  Sulpicius  Galba  for  a  flagrant  breach  of  pub- 
lic faith,  delivering  a  powerful  speech,  which  he  afterwards  re- 
vised for  insertion  in  a  work  on  which  he  continued  to  labor  till 
within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death. 

Such  was  the  man  by  whose  lips  Cicero  here  utters  his  senti- 
ments on  age.  The  other  personages  in  the  dialogue  are  the 
younger  Scipio  and  Graius  Laelius,  contemporai-ies  and  intimate 
friends,  now  about  thirty-five  years  old,  and  both  famous  men,  too, 
in  their  generation ;  Scipio,  the  son  of  j^Emilius  Paulus,  the  son- 
in-law  of  Cornelia  the  mother  of  the  Gracchi,  and  grandson  by 
adoption  of  the  elder  Scipio  Africanus,  whom  he  followed  as  a 
soldier  with  no  uneven  steps,  completing  in  the  destruction  of 
Carthage  the  work  which  his  grandfather  had  begun ;  a  Roman 
of  Romans,  Cicero's  ideal  statesman  in  his  "  De  Republica,"  and 
yet  in  scholarship  and  literary  tastes  the  chief  of  the  Hellenized 
Rome  of  his  day ;  and  Laelius,  a  good  soldier,  sharing  with  honor 
in  Scipio' s  campaigns,  and  in  the  arts  of  peace  his  leader,  an 
enthusiast  in  literary  studies,  an  accomplished  writer  and  speaker, 
and  with  Cicero  in  the  "  De  Amicitia  "  a  model  for  his  country- 
men in  all  higher  culture. 

These  two  friends  come  to  Cato  and  begin  the  conversation  by 
telling  him  that  they  have  often  admired  his  wisdom  in  other 
things,  but  most  of  all  in  his  bearing  old  age  so  easily,  a  burden 
which  they  had  heard  other  people  say  was  quite  odious  and  in- 
tolerable. The  old  man  replies,  that  it  is  no  such  wonderful 
thing ;  men  have  only  to  follow  the  guidance  of  nature ;  then 
they  will  find  old  age  no  harder  to  bear  than  manhood  or  youth  ; 
nature  has  made  all  due  provisions  for  the  end  as  for  the  begin- 
ning and  the  middle  of  human  life,  for  she  is  no  dull  poet,  know- 


OLD  AGE.  527 

ing  how  to  order  aright  four  acts  of  the  play  and  then  breaking 
down  in  the  last  act.  He,  too,  has  heard  some  old  men  complain 
of  their  lot,  the  decay  of  strength,  the  loss  of  pleasure,  the  vanity 
of  the  world.  The  fault,  however,  of  such  complaints  lies,  he 
thinks,  not  in  the  age,  but  in  the  character.  The  people  who  are 
querulous  and  ever  croaking  in  old  age,  were  querulous  also  in 
youth  ;  they  are  croakers  by  constitution  and  by  habit,  too.  Old 
age  has,  to  be  sure,  its  human  troubles,  but  a  wise  man  will  know 
how  to  bear  them,  even  as  he  bore  the  troubles  of  other  periods. 
To  complain  of  them  is  to  fight  against  nature,  and  that  were  just 
as  senseless  and  hapless  a  fight  as  the  war  of  the  giants  with  the 
gods.  Here  we  have  indicated  the  line  of  defense  of  old  age  in 
this  essay  of  Cicero.  Put  on  the  defensive  by  the  questionings  of 
his  young  friend,  our  Cato  Major,  old  in  years  but  delightfully 
young  in  spirit,  is  drawn  into  a  courageous  protest  against  the 
view  that  old  age  is  necessarily  an  unhappy  season.  He  finds 
four  seeming  grounds  for  this  view ;  the  first,  that  old  age  with- 
draws men  from  active  life ;  the  second,  that  it  weakens  their 
physical  powers ;  the  third,  that  it  robs  them  of  nearly  all  pleas- 
ures, and  the  fourth,  that  it  is  not  far  off  from  death.  These 
grounds  he  proceeds  to  show  to  be  in  his  judgment  untenable. 
The  manner  of  proceeding  is  not  quite  free  from  special  pleading, 
but  on  the  whole  is  fair  and  just  and  quite  as  logical  as  need  be. 
All  readers  will  agree,  at  any  rate,  that  it  is  very  entertaining  and 
instructive  ;  its  manly  thoughts  and  brave  words  and  bright  illus- 
trations casting  their  relieving  lights  along  the  evening  of  man's 
life  on  earth,  and  opening  at  last,  through  the  passing  shadow  of 
death,  clear  glimpses  of  an  after  immortal  life,  and  the  glad  re- 
unions and  societies  there  of  the  good  of  all  ages  and  climes. 
From  this  general  view  of  the  plan  and  scope  of  Cicero's  essay,  I 
pass  now  to  some  reflections  upon  its  theme,  not  following  directly 
the  train  of  thought,  though  often  touching  it  at  different  points. 
Without  refusing  to  look  at  the  darker  aspects  of  the  subject,  I 
purpose  to  dwell  longest  upon  the  brighter  ones,  and  if  I  should  be 
rather  discursive  or  say  too  much  upon  the  whole  or  any  one  part 
of  it,  I  shall  only  prove  what  old  Cato  allowed  for  his  own  dis- 
course, that  age  is  rather  given  to  rambling  and  loquacity,  and 
shall  show,  as  he  did,  that  I  do  not  defend  it  from  all  faults. 

It  is  an  interesting  preliminary  inquiry,  at  what  point  old  age, 
as  a  period,  is  understood  to  begin,  and,  in  accordance  with  this 
understanding,  what  are  the  preceding  periods,  and  where  they 


528  OLD  AGE. 

begin  and  end.  We  are  familiar  with  some  conventional  divi- 
sions of  human  life  in  literature  as  in  popular  speech,  though  the 
main  divisions  exist  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  There  is  the  fluc- 
tuation in  the  dividing  line  between  manhood  and  old  age  as  well 
as  between  youth  and  manhood.  As  we  naturally  distinguish  the 
young  and  the  old,  we  are  mostly  content  with  the  general  division 
of  youth  and  age,  even  as  in  the  year  we  are  content  with  the 
broad  divisions  of  summer  and  winter.  Thus  it  is  that  Cicero  in 
this  piece  sometimes  makes  the  whole  of  life  to  consist  of  adules- 
centia  and  senectus.  But  soon  an  exacter  division  is  a  threefold 
one,  with  childhood,  the  Koman  pueritia,  preceding  youth  and 
age,  even  as  we  have  spring  before  summer  and  winter.  In  one 
passage  of  this  piece  Cicero  has  this  division  ;  the  pueritia,  end- 
ing as  late  as  20 ;  the  adulescentia,  at  45  ;  and  the  senectus  then 
beginning.  Thus,  too,  in  one  of  his  letters  he  speaks  of  Octavian 
at  19  as  puer,  and  Sallust  calls  Julius  Caesar  adulescentulus  at 
35  ;  and  in  Livy  (30,  40),  Hannibal  at\  50  is  called  senex.  But 
further,  as  in  the  analogy  the  autumn  comes  in  between  summer 
and  winter,  so  in  man's  life  the  second  period  is  subdivided  by  the 
Romans  into  adulescentia  and  juventus,  the  latter  the  fruitful 
autumn,  and  so  making  the  fourfold  division  of  pueritia,  adules- 
centia, juventus,  and  senectus.  This  is  Horace's  division  in  his 
well-known  passage  of  the  "  Ars  Poetica,"  only  he  calls  the  second 
period  juventus  and  the  third  cetas  virilis.  We  do  not  have  in 
English  convertible  terms  for  adulescens  and  juvenis,  the  former 
meaning  one  who  is  growing  up ;  the  latter  one  full-grown  or 
adult.  But  in  Latin  writers  a  still  more  common  division  is  five- 
fold, which  is  made  by  putting  farther  off  the  beginning  of  senec- 
tus, by  inserting  between  it  and  juventus  the  cetas  seniorum  ;  the 
senectus  thus  begins  at  60. 

But  a  still  minuter  analysis  of  man's  life  the  Romans  had  in 
seven  ages,  the  first  three  representing  life  as  on  the  ascent  as  in- 
fans,  puer,  adulescens,  the  fourth  juvenis,  young  man,  as  at  the 
highest  point,  and  for  a  while  at  a  standstill,  and  the  last  three  as 
life  is  on  the  decline,  vir,  senex,  and  silicernius,  the  last  being  the 
"  second  childishness "  of  Shakespeare's  "  Seven  Ages,"  though 
otherwise  the  Roman  and  English  divisions  agree  only  in  the  num- 
ber seven.  But  of  old  age,  wherever  in  years  it  may  be  said  to 
begin,  Cicero  well  says  no  one  can  fix  the  point  where  it  is  to 
end  ;  he  contents  himself  with  adding,  that  it  may  go  on  so  long 
as  one  is  adequate  to  his  appointed  work.  He  entered  into  no 


OLD  AGE.  529 

speculation  touching  the  natural  term  of  human  life,  a  curious 
question  not  infrequently  discussed  by  modern  writers,  and  for 
the  most  part  only  with  curious  results.  The  naturalist  Buffon 
states  as  the  conclusion  of  his  investigations  that  the  natural  dura- 
tion of  man's  life  is  "  eighty  or  a  hundred  years,"  but  he  is  far  from 
claiming  for  his  conclusion  the  absoluteness  of  a  physical  law. 
The  French  writer  Flourens,  in  an  elaborate  work  on  "  Human 
Longevity,"  adopts  the  latter  figure  of  Buffon's  conclusion,  and 
determines,  on  what  he  considers  a  large  induction,  one  hundred 
years  to  be  the  natural  period  of  human  existence.  But  the  ex- 
perience of  the  world  seems  to  rest  with  assurance  on  the  term  of 
threescore  and  ten  as  set  down  in  "  the  prayer  of  Moses,  the  man 
of  God,"  the  90th  Psalm,  the  oldest  in  the  Psalter:  "The  days 
of  our  years  are  threescore  years  and  ten,  and  if  by  reason  of 
strength  they  be  fourscore  years,  yet  is  their  strength  labor 
and  sorrow,  for  it  is  soon  cut  off,  and  we  fly  away ; "  or,  as  we 
have  the  last  clause,  and  I  think  better,  in  Coverdale's  version, 
"  so  soon  passeth  it  away,  and  we  are  gone."*'  By  the  side  of  this 
conception  of  the  shortness,  at  the  most,  of  the  span  of  human 
life  let  me  give  you  a  passage  from  Cicero,  which  in  its  truth  is  not 
unworthy  such  a  place.  He  has  just  said  of  the  youth  and  the  old 
man,  that  "  the  one  hopes  to  live  long,  the  other  has  lived  long  ;  " 
and  then  he  exclaims,  as  if  in  rebuke  of  himself,  "  Although,  ye 
good  gods !  what  is  there  long  in  man's  life  ;  for  though  our  years 
were  extended  to  the  extremest  measure,  let  their  length  be  even 
as  that  of  the  king  of  Tarshish,  yet  naught  may  we  call  long 
which  hath  an  end ;  and  when  that  end  cometh,  then  what  has 
passed  away  is  gone  forever"  Not  to  go  back  to  antediluvian 
records,  there  are  numerous  recorded  instances  in  different  coun- 
tries and  generations  of  lives  which  have  far  exceeded  the  Psalm- 
ist's term  of  threescore  and  ten ;  but  apart  from  the  fortunate 
ones,  to  some  of  which  I  may  by  and  by  allude,  his  pathetic  pic- 
ture of  "labor  and  sorrow  "is  probably  true  to  human  life  in 
every  time.  The  king  Arganthonius,  to  whom  Cicero  alluded,  lived 
to  be  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  old.  The  elder  Pliny,  in  his 
statistics  of  the  census  of  Vespasian's  reign,  gives  instances  from 
Cisalpine  Gaul  of  fifty-four  persons  who  had  reached  the  age  of 
100,  fourteen  of  110,  two  of  125,  and  three  of  140.  Terentia, 
Cicero's  wife,  long  survived  her  husband,  and  lived  to  the  age  of 
103.  The  actress  Galeria  appeared  on  the  stage  at  104  in  Augustus' 
time,  and  that  was  ninety-one  years  after  her  first  appearance. 


530  OLD  AGE. 

A  very  interesting  historic  instance  is  recorded  by  Tacitus,  of 
Junia  Tertullia.  She  was  the  sister  of  Marcus  Brutus,  and  the 
wife  of  Cassius ;  she  lived  sixty-four  years  after  the  republican 
battle  of  Philippi,  which  was  fatal  to  both  her  husband  and 
brother,  and  she  died  at  107  in  the  year  22  A.  D.,  the  eighth  of 
Tiberius'  reign,  probably  the  last  surviving  witness  in  imperial 
Rome  of  the  downfall  of  the  republic.  I  might  add  other  in- 
stances belonging  to  different  countries  in  modern  times,  but  what 
I  have  already  said  is  rather  digressive,  as  longevity  is  not  my  sub- 
ject. But  whatever  may  be  the  conventional  or  the  natural  begin- 
ning of  age,  whether  in  individuals  it  come,  as  come  the  preceding 
periods,  earlier  or  later,  owing  to  a  stronger  or  a  weaker  constitu- 
tion, yet  as  life  goes  on,  come  at  some  time  that  beginning  must 
and  does.  Not  always  may  it  tarry ;  it  makes  known  its  approach, 
though  oft  unawares,  by  signs  of  its  own,  then  erelong  it  is  at 
hand,  and  presently  at  the  door,  and  within,  whether  as  an  invited 
guest  or  an  unwelcome  intruder.  Some  men  say,  as  Cicero  truly 
observes,  "  but  age  steals  in  upon  us  sooner  than  we  had  reck- 
oned." To  such  he  puts  the  sharp  question,  "  Ah !  but  who  com- 
pelled you  to  make  a  false  reckoning? "  " For  how  does  age  steal 
in  sooner  upon  manhood  than  manhood  upon  youth  ?  "  Such  ques- 
tioning may  strike  us  as  somewhat  merciless,  but  probably  it  is 
not  more  merciless  than  truthful.  Yet  in  all  times  have  men 
been  wont  to  give  age  at  its  coming  an  ill  reception,  accosting  it 
with  reproaches  and  complaints.  So  was  it  with  the  Greeks  in 
their  fondness  for  luxuriant  life  in  nature  and  in  man ;  so  at  least 
we  may  infer  from  some  of  their  writers.  Hesiod  personifies  age 
as  "  the  daughter  of  night,"  with  the  epithet  of  "  destructive ; " 
and  Homer,  too,  uses  such  epithets  for  it  as  "  dismal,"  "  hateful," 
and  "  grievous."  With  Euripides  it  is  a  burden  "  heavier  than 
.(Etna,"  and  even  with  the  calm  Sophocles  it  is  "  friendless,  weari- 
some, and  hated  by  the  gods."  Like  these  last  words  are  words 
of  the  Hebrew  Psalmist,  "  For  we  are  consumed  by  thine  anger, 
and  by  thy  wrath  are  we  troubled,"  and  the  wise  Preacher  of  Is- 
rael describes  age  in  contrast  with  youth  as  the  "  evil  days ; " 
"  while  the  evil  days  come  not,  nor  the  years  draw  nigh,  when 
thou  shalt  say,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them."  In  Latin  poetry, 
too,  Virgil  seemed  to  share  this  darker  view,  for  in  his  pictures  of 
the  lower  world  he  puts  "sad  old  age"  (Tristis  Senectus),  at  its 
very  gateway  in  the  ominous  companionship  of  pale  Disease,  and 
gaunt  Want,  and  shaking  Fear,  and  furious  Discord,  and  deadly 
War. 


OLD  AGE.  531 

And  in  modern  poetry,  too,  we  find  similar  conceptions,  though 
its  general  tone  is  nobler  and  truer.  Witness  the  unlovely  and 
cheerless  spectacle  which  Shakspeare  put  upon  his  stage  of  the 
world  in  the  last  two  scenes  of  his  "  Seven  Ages  "  of  man !  And 
what  more  dismal  than  that  refrain  from  a  later  poet,  far  inferior 
to  be  sure,  but  never  wanting  in  true  pathos,  "  What  can  an  old 
man  do  but  die  ?  "  And  so  the  poets  sing  of  age  on  this  minor 
key,  though  the  sentiment  lacks  the  harmony  of  consistency  ;  for 
certainly  men  desire  to  reach  age,  though  they  may  be  averse  to 
being  old.  For  myself  I  listen  rather  to  old  Cato  here  ;  his  pitch 
is  on  a  higher  and  gladder  note ;  and  though  the  movement  be  not 
in  measured  verse,  yet  it  has  all  the  rhythm  of  Cicero's  "  numer- 
ous prose."  Let  us  catch,  if  we  may,  this  cheerful  tone,  and  hold 
it  too  if  we  can.  Let  us  be  willing  to  look  at  the  shades  of  the 
picture  of  age,  but  the  lights  as  well,  the  ills  that  attend  it  and 
their  kindly  compensations. 

It  were  unwise  and  idle  to  deny  or  to  waive  the  enfeebling  in- 
fluence of  increasing  years  upon  the  powers  of  body  and  of  mind. 
There  is  a  natural  significance  of  truth  in  the  old  Tithonus  myth, 
and  this  quite  apart  from  any  mistaken  though  loving  Auroral 
prayers.  So  it  is,  that  we  carry  over  from  nature  to  the  life  of 
man  the  familiar  images  of  the  "  sere  and  yellow  leaf,"  the  fading 
flower,  and  the  withering  tree.  The  natural  force  that  is  so  ex- 
ultant in  buoyant  youth  and  in  manhood  calmly  rejoices  in  its 
mature  fullness,  then  begins,  at  first  insensibly  and  slowly,  and 
later  on  consciously  and  visibly,  to  abate  and  decline  ;  the  figure  is 
not  quite  so  erect,  the  step  is  less  strong  and  firm,  the  feet  take 
not  so  kindly  as  once  to  the  upward  grades  of  life's  roads ;  one 
well  on  in  the  sixties  is  not  so  fond  of  mountain-climbing  as  he 
was  in  his  youth,  and  is  sometimes  conscious  of  a  strain  upon 
him  even  when  mounting  hills  in  the  town,  aforetime  so  easy  of 
ascent ;  the  muscles  and  limbs  are  less  pliant,  less  obedient  to  the 
will,  and  an  over-exertion  is  apt  to  induce  something  like  a  twinge 
of  pain  or  some  ailment  or  indisposition,  suggestive  of  a  falling 
off  of  wonted  strength  and  power  of  endurance.  One  may  be 
reminded  perhaps  by  a  friendly  jest  or  a  reflection  of  the  mirror 
of  some  change  of  outward  aspect  in  the  quality  or  hue  of  com- 
plexion, or  of  the  color  of  the  hair  from  black  or  blond  to  gray  or 
white,  or  of  some  wrinkle  invading  the  smoothness  of  the  cheek 
or  the  brow.  Men  have  to  confess  to  some  changes  not  for  the 
better  in  the  senses  outer  and  inner,  the  eye  less  bright  and  clear, 


532  OLD  AGE. 

and  needing  for  its  functions  other  lenses  than  nature's,  the  ear 
losing  its  fine  sharpness,  getting  less  sensitive  to  the  utterances  of 
sound,  the  melody  and  harmony  of  music,  whether  of  song  and 
cunning  instrument,  or,  sweetest  music  of  all,  the  once  familiar 
voices  of  dear  friends ;  and  alas !  such  changes  with  growing  in- 
firmities sometimes  utterly  close  these  avenues  to  the  soul,  know- 
ledge and  "  wisdom  thus  quite  shut  out."  He  might  easily  add 
to  this  list  of  the  penalties  of  age,  in  losses  and  weaknesses 
from  the  other  senses,  tendencies  to  ailments  of  various  sorts,  and 
the  pains  and  disabilities  they  bring  with  them,  all  which  with 
some  persons  induce  general  discomfort  and  discontent,  and  even 
a  weariness  of  life  itself.  But  let  us  remember,  in  the  first  place, 
on  this  head,  that  it  belongs  to  the  course  of  nature  and  of  human 
life ;  that  if  there  is  a  falling  off  of  strength  in  age,  there  is 
strength  enough  for  all  that  is  required  of  age.  If  less  is  now 
done  or  can  be  done,  there  is  generally  less  to  do  or  that  is  re- 
quired to  be  done.  Cato  presently  rallies  his  young  friends  with 
the  reminder  that  strong  as  they  are  in  their  manhood,  they  are 
after  all  not  so  strong  as  the  robust,  burly  centurion  Titus  Pontius, 
—  some  Samson-like  Roman  captain  of  that  time.  Yet  they  do 
not  miss  or  require  his  strength  any  more  than  they  do  that  of  a 
bull  or  an  elephant.  Then,  too,  in  some  repulsive  descriptions  of 
old  age  there  lurks  ever  the  fallacy  that  all  its  possible  ills  and 
ails  come  together  and  in  troops,  and  especially  that  they  descend, 
falcon-like,  in  flocks,  and  at  one  swoop  upon  individual  men. 
Such  a  gathering  of  infirmities  is  in  reality  exceptional,  and  be- 
longs only  to  extreme  cases.  Indeed,  is  it  not  seldom  that  any 
persons  suffer  signal  visitations  of  them  in  number  or  in  kind  ? 
Then,  too,  consider  that  many  of  these  bodily  evils  are  not  the 
peculiar  lot  of  age  but  are  common  to  all  periods  of  life.  As  to 
the  more  violent  attacks  of  disease,  Cicero  reminds  us  that  the 
young  are  more  liable  to  them  than  the  old;  they  suffer  from 
them  more  severely,  and  are  healed  with  more  difficulty.  I  am 
not  sure  that  this  is  true,  but  certainly  with  the  young,  their 
keener  sensibility  and  greater  power  of  resistance  must  aggravate 
the  ills  of  sickness  and  pain.  It  is  worth  while,  too,  to  think  of 
the  compensations  which  lighten  the  burden  of  such  of  these 
evils  as  age  is  wont  to  suffer.  The  poet  Gray,  in  describing  the 
"  Pleasure  arising  from  Vicissitude,"  finely  expresses  the  joy  felt 
by  one  on  recovery  from  illness  ;  how  the  simplest  things  in  nature 
touch  the  sensibilities  with  a  quite  strange  delight :  — 


OLD  AGE.  533 

"  The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 
To  him  are  opening  Paradise." 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  such  a  glad  experience  belongs  to  age 
more  than  to  youth.  The  lighter  visitations  of  disease  may  come 
oftener  and  easier,  but  in  the  lucid  intervals,  when  the  "  lost  vigor 
is  repaired,"  and  one  "  breathes  and  walks  again,"  there  is  a  live- 
lier sense  of  feeling  and  being  well,  and  a  purer,  sweeter  satisfac- 
tion with  all  that  the  world  offers  again,  the  bounteous  riches  of 
earth,  air,  and  sky,  the  friendly  sight  of  human  faces,  and  the 
greetings  and  intercourse  of  friends.  We  may  think,  too,  of  the 
fact  that  in  the  sad  evils  of  the  loss  or  withdrawal  of  any  of 
the  senses,  as  in  the  calamities  of  deafness  or  blindness,  there  is 
an  increase  of  activity  and  of  perception  through  the  other  senses, 
and  also  a  greater  capacity  of  mental  concentration,  the  mind  thus, 
in  its  seclusion  from  the  outer  world,  more  intensely  and  fruitfully 
active  in  its  inner  chambers  of  thought  or  of  imagination.  Cato 
tells  his  youthful  hearers  of  the  achievements  of  the  great  Appius 
Claudius,  when  he  was  blind  as  well  as  old ;  how  he  found  his  way 
to  his  place  in  the  curia  in  a  great  crisis  of  public  affairs,  and  in 
a  speech  of  burning  eloquence  dissuaded  the  Senate  from  consent- 
ing to  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Pyrrhus.  This  event  in  the  life  of 
a  Roman  statesman  reminds  us  of  the  last  oratorical  effort  of  the 
English  Chatham,  when,  not  blind  indeed,  but  old  and  infirm,  he 
denounced  in  the  House  of  Lords  the  treaty  with  France  and  the 
separation  from  England  of  the  American  colonies.  But  Cato 
might  have  cited  from  the  domain  of  letters  in  antiquity  a  yet 
more  illustrious  name,  —  Homer,  the  blind  bard  of  Scio,  who  in 
his  sightless  old  age,  yet  as  a  poet  and  seer,  produced  those  two 
great  epics  of  Greek  verse  which  were  destined  to  a  perpetual 
youth  in  the  instruction  and  delight  of  men  of  all  after  times  and 
tongues.  By  this  great  ancient  name  we  can  put  a  like  great  name 
in  our  English  Milton,  "cut  off"  by  blindness  for  the  last  twenty- 
one  years  of  his  life  from  the  sight  of  nature  and  "  the  human  face 
divine,"  yet  bating  not  one  jot  of  heart  or  hope,  but  steering  right 
onward  in  the  career  of  genius,  and  producing  in  those  darkened 
years  his  two  illustrious  English  epics. 

The  mention  of  these  great  names  and  of  the  achievements 
which  thus  made  them  great  may  give  us  an  easy  transition  to 
what  may  be  said  on  the  brighter  side  of  the  influence  of  age  on 
the  intellectual  powers.  Alleviating  conditions  there  certainly 
are  to  the  weakening  pressure  of  years  upon  the  inner  and  finer 


534  OLD   AGE. 

parts  of  man's  nature.  The  memory  is  -doubtless  the  first  to  suf- 
fer, especially  in  losing  its  hold  upon  names,  and  also  upon  events 
of  more  recent  occurrence,  while  yet  clinging  with  a  fond  tenacity 
to  the  scenes  and  associations  of  childhood.  But,  as  Cato  well  says, 
the  memory  often  suffers  from  sheer  lack  of  use,  or  from  a  lack  of 
interest  in  the  things  to  be  remembered.  He  never  heard,  he 
says,  of  any  old  man  who  had  forgotten  where  he  had  buried  his 
treasures,  or  who  his  debtors  were,  and  how  much  they  owed  him. 
Our  vigorous  old  Roman  also  affirms,  with  much  truth,  of  the 
higher  faculties,  that  they  continue  in  force  and  in  quality  if  only 
there  be  a  continuance  of  their  zealous  and  active  exercise.  Hence 
he  will  hear  of  no  premature  exemption  from  work  as  a  privilege 
of  age,  and  he  illustrates  his  view  by  enumerating  memorable  in- 
stances of  poets,  philosophers,  and  statesmen  who  preserved  their 
faculties  to  extreme  old  age  by  continuous  and  healthful  occupa- 
tion. Plato  was  at  work  on  his  "  Dialogues  "  at  eighty-one,  Socra- 
tes wrote  the  finest  of  his  orations  at  eighty-two ;  at  ninety  Sopho- 
cles composed  his  best  tragedy,  and  indeed  it  was  the  best 
production  of  the  Greek  Tragic  Muse,  the  "CEdipus  at  Colouus;" 
and  Pindar  and  Simonides  wrote  some  of  their  noblest  lyrics  at 
eighty  and  upwards.  But  instead  of  trying  to  exhaust  Cato's  list 
of  aged  celebrities,  let  us  take  some  nearer  illustrations  of  his 
point  from  names  of  men  in  modern  times,  who  in  letters  and  sci- 
ence and  public  life  have  been  conspicuous  by  a  prolonged  career 
of  usefulness  and  fame.  Newton  and  Locke  and  Bacon  produced 
some  of  their  greatest  works  after  they  had  passed  the  age  of 
sixty ;  the  German  philosopher  Kant  reached  the  maturest  results 
of  his  metaphysical  studies  after  he  was  seventy,  and  Humboldt's 
"  Cosmos  "  was  written  and  published  in  the  last  ten  years  of  his 
life,  and  he  lived  to  be  eighty-eight.  The  poet  Goethe  kept  his 
faculties  unclouded  till  eighty-six,  always  intensely  busy,  and  in 
science  as  well  as  in  art,  finishing  the  last  acts  of  his  greatest  poem 
after  he  was  seventy-five.  Wordsworth  lived  to  be  eighty,  and 
Rogers  to  be  ninety-two.  We  have  all  read  Brougham's  "  Sketches 
of  Statesmen  of  the  time  of  George  III."  Nearly  all  the  great 
men  of  that  illustrious  generation  who  were  great  jurists  and  law- 
yers as  well  as  statesmen,  maintained  to  advanced  age  at  the  bar 
or  on  the  bench,  and  in  Parliament  by  the  living  voice,  and  by 
their  writings,  the  ability  and  the  vigor  and  the  capacity  for  emi- 
nent public  service  which  had  distinguished  the  years  of  their 
manhood.  Sheridan  and  Burke  were  among  the  youngest,  and 


OLD  AGE.  535 

they  lived,  the  one  to  be  sixty-six  and  the  other  sixty-seven ;  Chat- 
ham died  at  seventy,  Erskine  at  seventy-five,  Lord  Thurlow  at 
seventy-four,  Lord  Mansfield  at  eighty-nine,  and  Brougham  him- 
self at  the  same  age  as  Mansfield ;  while  Lyndhurst,  after  an  active 
career  in  law  as  well  as  in  public  office,  died  at  ninety-one.  Wel- 
lington's name,  too,  may  be  added,  eminent  alike  in  war  and  in 
peace,  who  died  at  eighty-three,  of  whom  some  one  said  at  his 
death  that  "he  had  now  exhausted  Nature  as  he  had  before 
exhausted  glory." 

The  French  Talleyrand  and  the  German  Metternich  may  also 
swell  though  scarcely  adorn  this  roll,  who  died,  the  former  at 
eighty-four  and  the  latter  at  eighty-six,  after  having  played  so 
prominent  a  part  for  nearly  forty  years  in  European  diplomacy 
and  politics,  both  of  them  in  vigorous  action  at  the  front,  on  one 
side  or  the  other,  or  on  both  sides,  in  the  many  political  revolutions 
that  marked  their  eventful  times.  Great  American  names  there 
are,  too,  which  illustrate  my  present  point.  Of  our  first  six 
Presidents,  the  average  age  was  eighty,  the  elder  Adams  reaching 
ninety-one  years,  and  the  younger  eighty-one  ;  and  none  of  them 
betrayed  a  marked  falling  off  of  intellectual  vigor.  In  letters 
also  we  may  recall  Irving,  who  began  a  new  issue  of  his  works 
and  enjoyed  a  new  popularity  after  he  was  sixty-seven,  and  he 
lived  to  be  seventy-six.  Bryant  translated  the  Iliad  at  seventy- 
five  and  the  Odyssey  at  seventy-seven ;  and  Longfellow,  who  has 
just  passed  away  at  seventy-five,  the  sweet  light  of  his  genius  un- 
dimmed,  published  his  Dante  at  sixty-four ;  and  for  seven  years 
after  he  sang  that  poem,  memory  and  prophecy  too,  his  "  Mori- 
twn  Salutamus"  still  moved  among  men,  " his  garland  and  sing- 
ing robes  yet  about  him."  Our  historian  Bancroft  is  yet  with  us, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-two,  vigorous  in  body  and  in  mind,  and  still 
fruitful  as  a  writer ;  and  one  of  our  number  has  just  come  back 
from  assisting  at  a  service  of  honor  done  to  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  at  an  ovation  given  him  in  New  York  by  his  medical 
brethren  after  forty  years'  professional  usefulness  and  distinction, 
which  we  shall  doubtless  hear  was  as  grand  a  one,  and  certainly 
as  well  earned,  as  that  which  was  given  him  in  Boston  by  his 
brother  poets  and  men  of  letters,  when  he  reached  two  years  ago 
the  age  of  seventy. 

But  let  me  pass  now  to  speak  of  some  of  the  prevailing  dispo- 
sitions and  habitudes  of  mind  and  character  which  belong  to  age  ; 
and  here  I  think  we  shall  find  that  time  brings  with  it  some 


586  OLD  AGE. 

positive  gains  and  blessings  which  overbalance  any  of  the  losses 
and  pains  it  inflicts.  Cato  says,  people  tell  us  that  old  men  are 
anxious  and  suspicious,  they  are  irritable  and  morose,  hard  to 
please  and  get  on  with  ;  if  we  seek  for  them,  they  are  even  ava- 
ricious. We  hear  such  complaints  still,  we  read  of  them  in  lit- 
erature, they  are  characters  in  plays.  But  is  it  not  the  truth  that 
these  vicious  qualities  belong,  not  to  old  men  as  such,  but  to 
such  old  men  ?  Nay,  as  Cato  says,  they  belong  to  character  in 
general  and  to  character  in  manhood  and  youth  as  much  as  in 
later  periods  of  life.  Like  some  bodily  infirmities  which  come 
to  age  from  a  dissolute  and  intemperate  youth,  so  these  moral 
vices  are  often  the  inheritance  in  age  from  a  morally  vicious  ill- 
disciplined  youth ;  and  in  all  such  cases  it  is  so  much  the  worse 
for  youth.  If  one  have  a  sullen  and  peevish  temper  in  early  life, 
and  it  be  not  checked  and  corrected,  it  must  needs  harden  and 
knot  itself  later  into  moroseness ;  for,  as  the  old  proverb  has  it, 
"The  older  the  crab-tree  the  more  crabs  it  bears."  The  truth 
seems  to  be,  that  with  the  discipline  of  years,  in  overcoming  diffi- 
culties, bearing  trials  and  burdens,  in  knowing  men  and  the  con- 
ditions of  life  better,  and  learning  gradually  to  adjust  one's  self 
to  all  changes  and  chances,  these  faults  rather  abate  than  increase, 
and  often  give  way  to  corresponding  virtues  of  character.  Men 
grow  more  kindly  and  tolerant,  take  their  cares  more  lightly,  learn 
to  be  silent  and  patient  under  offenses,  when  once  they  would 
have  broken  impetuously  into  angry  words  and  acts.  They  may 
grow  less  credulous,  less  lavish  of  confidence,  but  not  of  necessity 
suspicious  and  irritable.  If  men  and  events  are  not  as  before  seen 
in  the  rosy  colors  of  fancy  and  hope,  they  are  contemplated  oftener 
in  the  white  light  of  truth  and  reality.  It  is  told  of  Theophrastus, 
the  pupil  and  successor  in  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  that  when  he 
was  very  aged  —  and  he  lived  to  be  one  hundred  and  seven  —  he 
remarked  that  he  was  now  beginning  to  be  wise  and  to  see  things 
just  as  they  really  are.  As  to  avarice  in  age,  we  may  well  take 
up  the  word  of  Cato,  "  What  an  old  man  will  have  avarice  for,  I 
do  not  comprehend  ;  for  can  anything  be  more  absurd  than  to  be 
gathering  the  more  provisions  for  the  journey,  just  in  proportion 
as  there  is  less  of  the  journey  to  travel  ?  "  And  yet  this  is  per- 
haps the  passion  which  holds  on  in  age  with  deadliest  grasp  to  the 
soul  of  the  man  who  has  yielded  to  it  in  earlier  life,  and  all  others 
may  fade  and  expire,  but  this  dies  only  with  life  itself.  Age 
never  grows  wise  enough  to  get  free  of  this  deep-rooted  folly. 


OLD,  AGE.  537 

But  we  may  certainly  reckon  among  the  positive  gains  of  increas- 
ing years  those  prime  qualities  of  character  which  fit  men  for  the 
conduct  of  life  in  all  important  relations,  —  such  as  foresight  and 
prudence,  caution  and  judgment,  the  practical  wisdom  that  comes 
from  reflection  and  experience.  We  are  learning  in  our  earlier 
years,  but  only  later  are  we  truly  qualified  to  teach.  This  is  true 
of  teaching  in  the  largest  sense  of  the  word,  as  it  applies  to  all 
professions,  all  matters  of  business. 

If  the  young  are  better  fitted  for  enterprise  and  execution,  it  is 
to  men  in  advanced  years  that  we  look  for  the  counsel  and  instruc- 
tion which  are  essential  to  success  in  everything  which  is  to  be 
undertaken  and  done.  The  teaching  of  earlier  life,  alike  in  the 
narrower  and  the  wider  significance  of  the  word,  is  generally  of 
more  value  to  the  teacher  than  to  the  taught.  The  teaching  the 
world  needs  and  wants  on  the  education  not  only  of  youth  but  of 
all  mankind  in  the  great  schools  of  the  world,  in  communities  and 
states,  all  institutions,  civil,  religious,  social,  is  that  of  mature  men 
who  have  come  to  be  familiar  by  thought  and  practice  with  the 
general  principles  of  being  and  action,  and  who  know  how  to  apply 
them  to  the  promotion  of  all  great  interests  of  society.  Especially 
is  all  this  true  in  its  application  to  the  conduct  of  public  affairs. 
Old  Cato  says,  "Judgment  and  reason  and  wisdom  are  in  old 
men ;  and  without  old  men  there  would  be  no  commonwealths  at 
all."  Hence,  he  continues,  "  it  is  natural  that  our  ancestors  called 
the  highest  deliberative  assembly  of  the  state  the  Senate,  as  the 
Council  of  the  Elders  " —  a  good  remark,  which  we  may  apply  in 
all  its  meaning  to  the  fitting  name  of  the  supreme  council  in  all 
modern  states.  He  bids  his  young  hearers  study  history,  and  they 
"will  discover  that  the  greatest  states  have  been  impaired  by 
young  men  and  upheld  or  restored  by  the  old ; "  and  he  quotes 
them  an  apt  passage  from  a  play  of  Navius :  "  Tell  me,"  some  one 
inquires,  "  tell  me  how  is  it  that  you  have  lost  so  great  a  state  as 
yours  ?  "  And  the  answer  is :  "  There  came  forth  orators,  new, 
foolish,  youthful."  As  Cato  said  of  ancient,  so  we  may  say  of 
modern  history  that  it  illustrates  the  supremacy  of  age  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  states.  The  instances  are  comparatively  few  in  ancient 
or  modern  times  of  young  men  possessing  supreme  power,  or  ex- 
erting a  commanding  influence  in  shaping  the  destinies  of  nations. 
A  notable  one  is  Alexander  the  Great,  who  came  to  the  throne  at 
twenty,  conquered  the  world  in  twelve  years,  and  died  at  thirty- 
two.  The  Scipio  of  our  book  of  Cicero  was  elected  consul  six 


538  OLD  AGE. 

years  in  advance  of  the  legal  age,  and  in  his  consulship  reduced 
Carthage  and  created  the  Roman  province  of  Africa.  William 
Pitt  is  also  an  instance,  coming  to  highest  political  power  at 
twenty-four,  and  ruling  England  like  a  dictator  for  nearly  twenty 
years  ;  but  Pitt  was  never  young,  and  he  died  at  forty-seven.  No 
less  remarkable  is  the  case  of  our  Hamilton,  the  peer  of  Pitt  in 
intellectual  resources  and  his  superior  in  wisdom,  a  member  of 
Congress  at  twenty-five  and  there  inferior  to  none  in  influence ; 
at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  in  Washington's  Cabinet  at  thirty- 
two,  and  commander-in-chief  at  forty-two.  It  is  a  singular  co- 
incidence that  Hamilton  died  at  the  same  age  as  Pitt  —  forty- 
seven.  But  these  are  the  exceptional  instances  in  the  annals  of 
government.  In  general  it  is  not  till  men  are  advanced  in  years 
that  they  reach,  by  the  knowledge  and  wisdom  which  time  and 
experience  only  can  bring,  the  heights  of  political  power;  and 
then,  too,  their  influence  increases  rather  than  declines  with  in- 
creasing years,  the  confidence  in  them  of  the  world  growing 
stronger  with  the  growth  and  strength  of  their  own  resources  and 
of  their  ability  to  employ  them  for  the  public  good.  The  lives  of 
statesmen  of  the  past,  which  I  adduced  under  another  head, 
strongly  illustrate  this  point  also ;  and  recent  and  contemporary 
history  may  readily  furnish  like  signal  illustrations.  It  was  Thiers, 
then  seventy-four  years  old,  to  whom  all  France  looked  for  help 
in  the  time  of  dire  extremity  after  the  Prussian  conquest ;  and 
who  was  chosen  by  Assembly  and  people  alike  as  the  chief  of 
the  state ;  and  he  by  his  abundant  resources  of  political  knowledge 
and  wisdom  saved  the  country  from  impending  ruin.  Gladstone 
was,  perhaps,  in  some  sense  a  stronger  man  twenty  years  ago  than 
he  is  now  at  seventy-three ;  but  he  is  far  more  fit  to  govern  than 
he  was  then ;  and  we  have  seen  in  all  the  congratulations  and 
honors  that  poured  in  upon  him  when  he  reached  the  age  of  sev- 
enty and  ever  since  that  the  people  of  England  never  had  so  much 
confidence  in  his  power  to  rule  them  wisely  and  well  as  they  have 
now.  In  general,  the  English  statesmen  who  rank  as  leaders  are 
generally  accounted  young  at  fifty-five  and  sixty ;  and  at  seventy 
and  upwards  they  can  be  trusted  at  length  with,  the  responsibili- 
ties of  sovereign  power.  Much  that  is  said  about  old  men  being 
too  conservative,  living  only  in  the  past,  and  averse  to  change,  is 
quite  superficial  and  fallacious.  Men  that  have  lived  long  and 
observed  and  experienced  much,  are  certainly  conservative  about 
things  which  are  worth  conserving  ;  they  "  hold  fast  that  which  is 


OLD  AGE.  539 

good."  That  fixedness  of  opinion  which  makes  the  evil  of  conser- 
vatism in  the  bad  sense  of  the  word  is  a  vice  of  constitution  or 
of  circumstance,  and  is  found  in  men  at  forty  or  fifty  quite  as 
often  as  at  seventy  or  later ;  or  if  it  exists  in  the  old  it  is  those 
whose  knowledge  is  limited,  whose  horizon  has  been  circumscribed, 
closing  down  a  mile  or  two  only  beyond  the  place  where  they  were 
born  or  where  they  have  lived ;  but  men  that  have  moved  in  broad 
ranges  of  thought  and  observation  and  action  are  in  reality  the 
truest  friends  and  promoters  of  conservative  progress ;  they  are 
willing  "  to  prove  all  things,"  if  only  they  are  worth  proving,  and 
they  are  fitted  to  prove  them  aright  by  the  tests  of  intelligence 
and  truth.  Thus  we  find  in  all  the  affairs  of  men,  and  not  alone 
in  public,  life,  it  is  really  the  old  more  than  the  young  who  from 
their  fuller  knowledge  of  the  past  and  their  experience  of  the 
changes  which  they  have  witnessed  and  shared  in  are  quickest  to 
discern  the  new  changes  that  are  needed  for  the  onward  progress 
of  mankind.  And  from  this  point  let  me  pass  on  to  say  what  a 
rich  satisfaction  falls  to  the  lot  of  such  men  in  their  consciousness 
of  growth  and  attainment  and  the  consequent  means  of  influence 
for  the  promotion  of  human  welfare.  Here  is  one  source  of  sat- 
isfying delight  which  may  well  be  set  over  against  the  pleasures 
they  have  lost  in  the  loss  of  youth  —  for  that  we  remember  is  one 
complaint  against  age,  that  it  deprives  men  of  nearly  all  pleas- 
ures. And  though,  as  Cato  says,  not  all  men  can  be  Scipiones 
and  Fabii  and  Appii  in  guiding  the  affairs  of  state,  yet  to  all  who 
may  have  moved  in  less  public,  more  retired  paths  of  life  there 
are  open  like  sources  of  quiet  satisfaction.  If  for  youth  there  are 
the  exciting  pleasures  of  hope,  the  flush  and  glow  of  contending 
struggle  and  effort,  age  can  repose  in  the  calmer  joys  of  remem- 
brance, of  looking  back  over  races  already  run,  and  goals  reached, 
and  prizes  won. 

And  as  for  even  the  pleasures  of  a  more  sensuous  kind,  to 
which  Cato  allows  the  young  are  more  keenly  alive,  he  yet  mildly 
contends  that  age  has  some  share  in  whatever  of  real  good  they 
can  bestow.  "  Age,"  he  says,  "  though  it  cannot  enjoy  immoderate 
feasts,  yet  can  take  delight  in  moderate  entertainments."  I  sup- 
pose he  means  the  "  simple  refreshments "  which  belong  to  all 
true  club  life ;  and  he  says  that  he,  too,  belonged  to  a  club,  and 
was  wont  to  feast  there  with  his  fellows,  but  always  with  a  mellow 
moderation ;  and  then  he  gives  us  the  golden  word,  that  he  meas- 
ures his  delight  in  such  occasions,  not  by  the  pleasures  of  the 


540  OLD  AGE. 

body,  but  by  meeting  his  friends  and  enjoying  their  conversation. 
It  is  pleasant  to  listen  to  this  old  man  of  such  a  healthy  nature, 
when  he  tells  how  in  his  love  of  social  discourse  he  likes  the 
usage  of  having  the  master  of  the  feast  appointed,  and  the  inter- 
course of  speech  that  goes  on  round  the  table  at  his  bidding,  of 
the  small  and  dewy  cups,  as  in  the  Symposium  of  Xenophon,  and 
then  most  of  all  the  general  cheerful  conversation  protracted  till 
deep  in  the  night.  The  fine  picture  of  Cato  given  us  by  Cicero 
is  perhaps  surpassed  by  that  one  drawn  by  Plato  of  the  aged 
Cephalus  in  the  introduction  to  the  "  Republic."  The  company 
in  that  dialogue  meet  at  Cephalus'  house,  and  among  others  Socra- 
tes comes  in,  and  at  once  asks  his  host  after  his  health  and  wel- 
fare. Cephalus,  in  replying,  tells  Socrates  he  ought  to  come  and 
see  him  oftener,  and  talk  with  him  ;  for,  he  says,  "  I  find  that  at 
my  time  of  life,  as  the  pleasures  and  delights  of  the  body  fade 
away,  the  love  of  discourse  grows  upon  me,"  and  when  further 
plied  with  questions  after  the  manner  of  Socrates,  about  his  feel- 
ing concerning  age,  he  says  among  other  good  things,  "  Certainly, 
Socrates,  old  age  has  a  great  sense  of  calm  and  freedom ;  when 
the  passions  relax  their  hold,  then  you  have  escaped  from  the  con- 
trol of  many  masters."  But  the  best  ancient  illustration  of  this 
fondness  for  social  discourse  we  have  in  Plato's  Symposium.  A 
Greek  symposium  followed  the  supper,  and  was  distinct  from 
it ;  there  was  no  drinking  at  the  supper,  but  the  symposium,  as  its 
name  denotes,  was  a  drinking  party,  always  united,  however,  with 
conversation,  or  with  music  and  dancing.  Xenophon's  symposium, 
as  Cato  says,  had  "  its  small  and  dewy  cups,"  and  in  Plato's  more 
famous  one  it  was  "  agreed  that  drinking  was  not  to  be  the  order  of 
the  day  ;  "  for  this  alleged  reason,  however,  it  must  be  truthfully 
added,  that  the  guests  had  all  had  a  bout  the  day  before,  and  had 
not  yet  recovered  from  it.  But  the  pleasures  of  the  feast  were 
intellectual ;  it  was  "  a  feast  of  reason."  Nowhere  in  letters, 
ancient  or  modern,  do  we  read  of  another  such ;  the  guests,  the 
choice  and  master  spirits  of  Athens,  and  their  discourse,  so  large 
and  wise  and  witty,  so  profound  and  yet  so  delightful,  and  pro- 
longed even  to  the  gray  of  the  morning  ;  and  then,  as  it  was  ending, 
Socrates  was  "  insisting  that  the  genius  of  comedy  was  the  same 
as  that  of  tragedy,  and  that  the  writer  of  tragedy  ought  to  be  a 
writer  of  comedy  also."  I  am  sure  we  shall  agree  with  Cato  and 
with  Cephalus  and  with  those  masters  of  Attic  wit  and  wisdom, 
that  this  love  "  of  sweet  discourse,  the  banquet  of  the  mind,"  will 


OLD  AGE.  541 

be  reckoned  among  the  pleasures  of  age.  Nor  let  us  leave  out  of 
account  among  the  calm  satisfactions  of  age  the  consideration  ever 
paid  to  it  in  the  family,  the  community,  the  state,  by  children  and 
youth,  citizens  and  people.  Age  is  venerable  in  itself,  and  it  in- 
spires and  receives  veneration.  This  is  a  sentiment  prompted  by 
the  instincts  of  human  nature,  it  is  the  unwritten  law  of  the  heart, 
and  it  finds  expression  in  the  institutions  and  usages  of  nations ; 
as  Cicero  aptly  says,  "  it  is  observed  in  all  states,  just  in  propor- 
tion to  the  excellence  of  its  manners  "  (De  Senec.  18).  How  fine 
and  how  true  is  the  old  Mosaic  precept,  "Thou  shalt  rise  up 
before  the  hoary  head,  and  honor  the  face  of  the  old  man."  And 
Cicero  mentions  the  same  thing  as  a  part  of  the  Roman  common 
law,  "  that  one  should  rise  up  before  the  face  of  the  elders  "  (De 
Inven.  I.  30,  48),  and  a  good  word  of  the  poet  Ovid  illustrates  it  in 
one  aspect  —  "  Who  would  dare  to  utter  before  an  old  man  words 
that  would  bring  a  blush  to  the  face  ?  "  (Fasti,  V.  69).  And  when 
to  age  itself  are  added  personal  worth,  great  qualities  of  character, 
and  services  in  life,  yet  profounder  and  more  marked  is  the  vener- 
ation felt  and  shown.  "  The  hoary  head  is  a  crown  of  glory,  if 
it  be  found  in  the  way  of  righteousness."  That  was  a  bitter 
ingredient  of  the  cup  put  to  the  lips  of  Macbeth  by  his  own 
murderous  hand,  that  he  "  must  not  look  to  have  " 
"  That  which  should  accompany  old  age, 
As  honor,  love,  obedience,  troops  of  friends." 

Cicero  enumerates  the  honors  paid  to  aged  senators  and  magis- 
trates, that  they  were  "  sought  after,  yielded  to,  escorted  to  and 
from  the  Forum,  consulted,  risen  up  to."  In  the  college  of  augurs 
age  always  had  precedence  in  speaking  and  in  voting,  the  older 
augurs  ranking  not  only  the  lower  magistrates,  but  even  consuls 
and  dictators.  He  tells,  too,  the  story,  never  too  often  told,  illus- 
trating the  Spartan  reverence  for  age  as  superior  at  least  in  prac- 
tice to  the  Athenian.  An  old  man  came  into  the  theatre  at 
Athens,  and  in  the  assemblage  no  seat  was  offered  him  by  his 
fellow  citizens ;  but  when  he  approached  some  Spartan  ambassa- 
dors who  had  certain  reserved  seats,  they  all  rose  up  in  a  body  and 
received  the  old  man  to  a  place  among  them.  The  whole  assem- 
bly applauded  the  act  with  vociferous  cheers.  Whereupon  one 
of  the  Spartans  quietly  remarked,  "  The  Athenians  know  what  is 
right,  but  they  are  unwilling  to  do  it."  I  remember  witnessing  a 
scene  not  unlike  this,  when  I  was  in  Berlin  a  few  years  ago.  I 
went  with  a  professor  of  the  university  to  a  session  of  the  Royal 


542  OLD  AGE. 

Academy  of  Sciences.  The  place  was  a  large,  well-appointed, 
quite  academic  hall,  much  longer  than  broad,  and  along  the  whole 
length  ran  a  table  with  chairs  for  the  members  of  the  Academy. 
On  one  side  over  against  the  table  was  a  dais  for  the  President 
and  other  officers,  and  by  the  other  sides  were  raised  seats  for 
guests.  I  had  a  seat  given  me  near  by  the  door,  which  was  so 
placed  that  a  large  part  of  the  company  had  their  backs  to  it. 
While  a  member  was  reading  the  paper  of  the  day,  the  door  near 
by  me  softly  opened,  and  in  walked  or  rather  glided,  so  softly  that 
he  was  not  at  first  heard  or  seen,  the  figure  of  a  quite  aged  man, 
stooping,  and  with  not  very  firm  step,  but  of  impressively  vener- 
able aspect.  Directly  one  of  the  members  caught  a  look  of  him, 
and  he  instinctively  arose,  then  the  President  himself,  and  he  rose 
up,  too,  and  so  one  after  another,  as  the  old  man  was  making  his 
way  slowly  to  his  own  seat,  and  before  he  reached  it  the  reader  of 
the  paper  had  stopped,  and  the  whole  learned  company  were  on 
their  feet,  all  eyes  turned  respectfully  to  the  aged  comer,  the  patri- 
arch of  the  Academy.  It  was  Alexander  Humboldt,  then  eighty- 
seven  years  old,  but  still  vigorous  in  mind,  the  facile  princeps  in 
science  of  all  these  Berlin  savans,  who  thus  delighted  to  do  him 
honor.  I  may  not  close  without  touching  the  last  theme  of  Cato's 
discourse,  —  the  complaint  that  old  age  is  but  one  remove  from 
the  end  of  all  man's  life  on  earth.  Here  culminate  the  moral 
interest  and  value  of  Cicero's  essay.  The  evil  that  seems  to  lie  in 
the  complaint  is  transfigured  by  Cato's  cheerful  hope  of  an  im- 
mortal and  blest  hereafter  into  the  crowning  blessing  of  age.  So 
pleasant  is  to  him  this  thought  of  the  end  approaching,  that  he  says 
it  is,  as  it  were,  seeing  land  after  a  long  voyage  and  now  at  last 
fast  coming  into  port.  He  rehearses  to  his  young  friends  the  argu- 
ments for  immortality  he  has  often  read  in  Plato's  "  Phaedo," 
among  others  that  from  the  capacities  of  the  soul,  as  needing  for 
their  development  an  endless  future  life.  He  delights  himself  in 
recalling  from  Xenophon  the  last  words  of  the  elder  Cyrus  to  his 
sons.  The  dying  man  would  not  have  his  sons  imagine  that  when 
he  had  died  his  soul  would  cease  to  live,  rather  would  he  have 
them  believe,  with  himself,  that  when  the  soul  was  freed  from  all 
connection  with  the  body,  then  at  length  it  would  enjoy  its  own 
independent  life.  Cato  might  also  .have  quoted  from  Plato's 
"  Republic  "  the  words  of  Cephalus  to  Socrates.  "  The  man,"  he 
said,  "  who  is  conscious  of  a  good  life  has  in  age  a  sweet  hope, 
which,  as  Pindar  charmingly  says,  is  the  nurse  of  his  age  and  the 


OLD  AGE.  543 

companion  of  all  his  journey."  And  then  Cato  gives  utterance 
to  his  own  long-cherished  convictions.  Always  has  he  looked  for- 
ward into  the  future  with  the  faith  that  when  he  should  depart 
from  life,  then  at  length  he  should  begin  truly  to  live.  For 
nature  has,  he  says,  given  us  here  only  a  place  for  a  sojourn,  not 
for  an  abiding  home.  And  then  he  breaks  forth  into  that  exul- 
tant cry,  "  Oh  glorious  day,  when  shall  I  set  out  for  that  divine 
council  and  assemblage  of  souls,  leaving  behind  me  the  crowd 
and  turmoil  of  earth !"  Such  was  the  prospect  of  the  hereafter 
which  opened  itself  to  this  aged  Roman  who  walked  in  the  light 
of  reason  and  trusted  in  the  intuitions  of  the  soul.  With  what 
a  serene  assurance  of  faith  may  a  Christian  man  await  the  inevi- 
table hour,  who  walks  in  the  light  of  revelation  and  believes  in 
Him  who  is  the  resurrection  and  the  life !  To  such  an  one  old  age 
may  be  the  best  and  happiest  portion  of  man's  days  on  earth,  for 
it  is  "  quite  in  the  verge  of  heaven."  Of  such  aged  men  have  we 
read,  such  have  we  known ;  it  may  be  we  remember  and  recall 
them  now  and  here.  Of  one  such,  I  think,  much  has  he  been 
in  my  mind  while  writing  these  pages,  who  used  to  be  with  us 
in  these  our  meetings,  and  who  made  so  large  a  part  of  our  club 
life.  How  often  have  I  heard  him  of  an  evening  repeat  his  favor- 
ite lines,  as  the  reflection  of  another  day's  end,  — 

"  Yet  nightly  pitch  my  moving  tent 
A  day's  march  nearer  home." 

There  was  a  happy  and  a  truly  venerable  age,  to  the  last  both 
enjoying  and  blessing  life,  but  ready  with  heart  and  lips  for  the 
last  earthly  word,  Doming  nunc  dimittis  !  I  mourned  him  when 
he  died  ;  many  times  have  I  missed  him  since  ;  but  I  always  chide 
myself  at  such  times  with  those  words  of  Bryant,  with  which  I  will 
close  my  paper :  — 

"  Why  weep  ye  then  for  him,  who  having  won 

The  bound  of  man's  appointed  years,  at  last, 
Life's  blessings  all  enjoyed,  life's  labors  done, 

Serenely  to  his  final  rest  has  passed  ; 
While  the  soft  memory  of  his  virtues  yet 
Lingers  like  twilight  hues,  when  the  bright  sun  is  set  ?  " 


JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL.1 

WRITTEN    FOR   THE   FRIDAY   CLUB,   JANUARY  4,  1884. 

I  HAVE  to  ask  the  indulgence  of  the  Club  that  I  venture,  with 
my  very  limited  knowledge  of  physical  science,  to  present  a  paper 
on  the  life  of  a  man  of  remarkable  scientific  genius,  and  who  in 
his  brief  but  brilliant  career  placed  himself  in  the  front  rank  of 
the  men  of  science  of  our  day.  I  may  plead,  however,  that  the 
biography  of  Professor  Maxwell,  which  I  make  the  basis  of  my 
paper,  was  written  by  a  professor  of  Greek,  Professor  Lewis  Camp- 
bell, of  the  University  of  St.  Andrews.  Let  it  be  said,  too,  that 
it  was  not  for  men  of  science  only  that  Professor  Maxwell  lived, 
and  for  whom  he  lives  still  in  his  writings  and  his  character.  Rare 
as  was  his  genius  for  scientific  research,  he  was  also  remarkable 
for  his  literary  gifts  and  attainments,  a  good  classical  scholar  from 
his  earliest  years,  and  especially  a  life-long  student  of  Lucretius, 
well  versed  by  fondly  studious  reading  in  the  best  English  poets, 
and  himself,  though  not  a  poet,  yet  a  frequent  contributor  to 
"  Blackwood's  Magazine "  of  serio-comic  verses,  full  of  close 
thought,  set  in  pointed  diction,  and  sparkling  with  wit,  verses 
which  are  great  favorites  with  English  university  men,  both  scien- 
tific and  literary.  Indeed,  whether  in  prose  or  in  verse  he  is  an 
attractive  writer,  not  only  for  scientific  men  but  for  all  men ;  ad- 
mired by  all,  just  in  proportion  to  their  capacity  for  appreciating 
him.  His  great  ability  in  investigating  truth  was  united  to  a  cor- 
responding ability  in  communicating  it  in  written  speech ;  the 
truth,  as  it  passed  through  his  own  mind  on  its  way  to  the  minds 
of  others,  not  only  took  clearness  and  vigor  of  form  from  his 
strong  intellect,  but  it  caught  vividness  and  warmth  from  his  cre- 

1  Professor  Lincoln  took  unusual  pleasure  in  preparing  this  essay.  In  the 
early  life  and  in  the  character  of  Maxwell  there  were  many  things  kindred  to 
his  own  experience  and  nature.  Both  had  saintly  mothers  very  early  removed 
hy  death,  and  fathers  who  were  revered  comrades  to  their  sons;  both  united 
exact  learning  with  liberal  ideas,  aptitude  for  intellectual  labor  with  outdoor 
life,  a  serious  turn  of  mind  with  a  love  of  fun,  marked  tendencies  to  self-intro- 
spection with  genial  good-fellowship,  and  most  of  all  fixed  religious  convictions 
with  a  charitable  appreciation  of  others'  beliefs. 


JAMES   CLERK  MAXWELL.  545 

ative  imagination  and  fine  sensibilities,  so  that  as  with  the  ideal 
writer  of  the  Latin  poet's  criticism,  who  knows  how  to  unite  "  the 
sweet  with  the  useful,"  Maxwell,  too,  carries  the  suffrages  of  all 
readers.  But  above  all  it  is  the  reverent  spirit  of  the  man,  by 
which  he  trod  ever  with  even  step,  the  path  alike  of  science  and  of 
religion,  his  unshaken  faith  in  Christian  truth  so  childlike  in  its 
simplicity,  so  manly  in  its  matured  strength  of  conviction,  and  his 
personal  character,  so  unassuming  and  yet  so  conspicuous  in  its 
excellence,  which  profoundly  interest  every  thoughtful  reader  of 
Maxwell's  life.  It  is  considerations  such  as  these  which  have 
drawn  me  to  the  task  I  have  set  myself  in  this  paper,  and  it  is 
these  which  I  will  try  to  unfold  and  illustrate  after  I  have  drawn 
from  Professor  Campbell's  biography  of  Maxwell  some  connected 
view  of  his  friend's  personal  history. 

James  Clerk  Maxwell  came  of  Scotch  blood  and  of  gentle  birth, 
born  in  Edinburgh,  June  13,  1831,  the  son  of  John  Clerk  Max- 
well, Esq.,  of  Middlebie.  His  father  was  the  son  of  Sir  George 
Clerk,  Baronet,  of  Penicuik,  and  was  himself  the  Laird  of  Glen- 
lair,  Middlebie,  an  estate  which  he  inherited  together  with  the 
name  of  Maxwell  from  his  grandmother,  Lady  Dorothea  Maxwell. 
Though  Maxwell  was  born  in  Edinburgh,  where  his  parents  spent 
part  of  the  year,  yet  the  home  of  the  family  was  the  estate  at 
Glenlair,  and  there  by  the  burns  and  amid  the  heathery  braes  and 
dingles  of  that  part  of  Scotland,  his  childhood  was  spent.  Being 
an  only  child,  Master  James  was  the  pet  of  his  parents,  and  his 
every  movement  was  watched  with  fond  eyes ;  and  the  prescience 
of  parental  love  discerned  and  noted  in  "  the  child  signs  of  the 
coming  man."  The  father  writes  of  him,  when  he  was  but  three 
years  old,  that,  "  had  great  work  with  doors,  locks,  and  keys,"  and 
that  "  show  me  how  it  doos  "  was  never  out  of  his  mouth.  Indeed, 
all  through  his  childhood,  of  every  new  thing  he  saw  his  inquisi- 
tive Scotch  question  always  was,  "  What 's  the  go  of  that  ?  what 
does  it  do? ".and  unwilling  to  be  put  off  with  a  vague  answer,  he 
would  follow  up  with  the  question,  "  But  what 's  the  particular  go 
of  it?"  On  a  page  of  the  biography  is  a  woodcut  taken  from  a 
sketch  preserved  in  the  family,  representing  a  "  barn-ball "  at  the 
harvest-home  of  1837,  when  the  boy  was  six  years  old ;  and  there 
you  see  him  standing  by  the  violin  player,  and  without  looking  at 
the  dancers,  only  watching  with  curious  eyes  the  movement  of  the 
bow  in  the  player's  hand,  as  if  he  was  bent  upon  finding  out  the 
"particular  go"  of  that  stick.  It  is  curious,  too,  to  learn  how  even 


546  JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL. 

in  early  boyhood  his  mind  began  to  go  out  towards  nature,  and  to 
take  first  impressions  from  all  her  forms,  inanimate  as  well  as  liv- 
ing ;  how  he  would  bring  home  from  his  walks  with  his  nurse  cu- 
rious pebbles  and  grasses,  and  set  them  away  till  he  could  get  his 
questions  about  them  answered,  how  in  walking  by  the  riverside 
he  would  note  the  holes  made  in  the  banks  and  the  lines  worn  in 
the  hard  rock,  and  ask  what  made  them  so ;  how  he  would  catch 
insects  and  watch  their  movements,  no  live  thing  in  its  flight  or 
jump  or  hop  ever  escaping  his  observant  eye.  Instructive,  too, 
is  it  to  notice  that  in  these  opening  years  his  moral  nature  was 
tenderly  nurtured  by  his  mother,  who  was  a  woman  of  true  Scotch 
intelligence  and  Scotch  piety.  She  taught  her  keen-eyed  boy  "  to 
look  through  Nature  up  to  Nature's  God."  As  he  afterwards 
gratefully  remembered,  it  was  under  her  teaching  that  he  came  to 
know  the  Scriptures  from  a  child,  and  with  a  knowledge  both  ex- 
tensive and  minute.  He  learned  large  portions  of  the  Bible,  espe- 
cially from  the  Psalms,  and  could  readily  recite  them ;  and  we  are 
told  by  his  biographer  that  "  these  were  not  known  merely  by 
rote ;  they  occupied  his  imagination,  and  sank  deeper  than  any- 
body knew."  It  was  the  boy's  misfortune  to  lose  his  mother  in 
the  ninth  year  of  his  age ;  but  this  great  loss  had  a  kind  of  com- 
pensation, for  it  drew  his  father  nearer  to  him  than  before,  and 
brought  the  two  into  a  relation  of  sympathy  even  as  of  older  and 
younger  brother,  which  as  you  watch  it  in  its  after  growth  and 
outgoings  is  charmingly  unique.  The  boy's  school  education  be- 
gan at  the  age  of  ten  years,  when  his  father  took  him  to  Edin- 
burgh and  entered  him  at  the  Edinburgh  Academy.  His  first  day 
in  that  academy,  which  has  schooled  many  famous  Scotchmen, 
brought  a  strain  of  trial  to  his  nature,  to  which,  all  new  as  it  was, 
he  showed  himself  nowise  unequal.  His  father,  a  plain  man  with 
no  care  for  outward  appearances,  had  brought  him  up  to  the  city, 
and  a  city  school,  all  in  his  country  dress,  a  tunic  of  gray  tweed, 
instead  of  a  city  boy's  round,  cloth  jacket,  shoes  very  square-toed, 
and  fastened  with  brass  clasps,  and  a  frill  about  his  neck  instead 
of  a  round  collar.  Such  a  rustic  spectacle  produced  a  sensation  in 
the  Edinburgh  schoolroom,  and  was  too  tempting  to  mischievous 
fun  for  "  a  parcel  of  rude  boys  in  their  teens."  At  the  very  first 
of  recess  they  all  came  about  the  new  comer  like  bees,  and  only  to 
sting  and  annoy.  Many  were  the  questions  asked,  but  especially 
this,  "And  who  made  those  shoes  ?  "  The  country  boy  was  at  first 
troubled,  but  he  soon  gathered  himself  and  made  good  answer,  ex- 
claiming to  the  question  in  the  broadest  patois :  — 


JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL.  547 

"  Div  ye  ken,  't  was  a  man, 
And  he  lived  in  a  house 
In  whilk  was  a  mouse." 

Just  what  else  took  place  and  how  was  the  transition  from 
tongues  to  fists  the  biographer  does  not  say,  but  only  records^ 
that  Master  James  appeared  at  his  aunt's  house,  where  he  was  to 
live,  his  tunic  in  rags,  and  minus  the  skirt,  and  his  frill  rumpled 
and  torn,  but  himself  vastly  amused  by  his  new  experiences  and 
with  no  sign  of  irritation.  He  had  come  off  well  from  his  first 
school  ordeal.  But  his  first  school  months  and  even  years  seem 
not  to  have  been  a  time  of  progress.  He  took  strongly  to  none  of 
the  studies,  and  got  no  quickening  influence  from  the  teachers. 
In  the  classes  he  was  hesitating  in  his  utterance,  and  strange  in  all 
his  ways,  so  that  he  got  the  nickname  of  "  Dafty,"  which  clung  to 
him  ever  after  in  the  school.  Out  of  school  he  was  shy  of  the 
boys,  and  seldom  took  part  in  any  games  ;  but  would  wander 
alone  to  any  bit  of  woods  or  clump  of  trees  he  could  find,  or  any 
green  spot  away  from  the  city  streets,  where  he  could  get  some- 
thing of  the  nature  life  he  had  had  in  the  country  home  at  Glen- 
lair.  But  in  his  own  room  at  his  aunt's  house  he  was  always 
active  in  body  and  in  mind.  There  in  company  with  a  cousin  he 
took  to  drawing,  and  also  to  wood-cutting,  in  which  he  so  far  suc- 
ceeded as  to  make  a  series  of  rude  engravings,  of  which  he  writes 
with  great  interest  to  his  father.  The  letters  to  his  father  at  this 
time  are  singularly  interesting,  not  only  from  their  confidential 
tone,  telling  of  everything  he  did,  and  of  every  thought  or  desire 
or  fancy  he  had,  but  also  because  of  the  quaint  drawings  he 
wrought  into  them  in  illustration  of  all  that  he  narrated,  and  the 
illuminated  letters  at  the  beginning  and  end,  and  the  borders  he 
traced  around  them.  Facsimiles  of  some  of  these  strange  boy 
letters  are  given  in  the  biography.  I  will  quote  only  three  sen- 
tences severally  from  three  letters  which  give  us  a  glimpse  of  the 
boy  at  ten  and  eleven,  in  his  work  at  school  and  at  home.  In  the 
first  he  tells  his  father,  "  As  to  my  place  in  class  I  am  No.  14  to- 
day, but  hope  to  get  up.  Ovid  (whom  we  are  reading  now) 
prophesies  very  well  when  the  thing  is  over,  but  lately  he  gave  us 
a  prophecy  of  a  victory  which  never  came  to  pass."  In  the  second 
he  writes,  "I  have -just  cast  three  seals  of  lead  from  the  life,  or 
rather  from  the  death,  one  of  a  cockle  and  two  of  mussels ;  with 
one  of  these  I  shall  seal  this  letter."  In  the  third  he  says,  "  I 
have  made  a  tetrahedron,  a  dodecahedron,  and  two  other  hedrons 


548  JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL. 

whose  names  I  don't  know."  As  to  this  last  feat  the  biographer 
remarks  that  he  had  not  yet  begun  geometry,  and  that  he  must 
have  seen  some  account  of  the  five  solids  in  some  books,  and  had 
so  mastered  them  with  his  boyish  imagination  as  to  construct  them 
out  of  pasteboard  with  approximate  accuracy.  About  the  middle 
of  his  school  career,  when  he  was  thirteen,  came  a  marked  change 
both  in  his  interest  and  his  success  in  his  school  duties.  He  found 
Latin  worth  learning,  and  took  kindly  to  his  Greek  Rudiments ; 
and  in  English  he  won  high  rank  and  yet  higher  in  Mathematics. 
He  showed  cleverness  in  writing  Latin  verses,  and  was  so  success- 
ful in  English  composition  that  he  won  the  first  prize  in  English 
and  also  the  prize  for  English  verse.  But  what  pleased  him  most 
was  the  winning  what  was  called  the  Mathematical  Medal;  of 
which  he  writes  to  his  aunt  in  a  tone  of  modest  but  undisguised 
triumph.  To  the  same  correspondent  he  writes  a  letter  at  about 
the  same  time,  the  opening  sentence  of  which  seems  to  show  that  he 
was  fond  of  art  as  well  as  Mathematics.  "  I  have  drawn  a  picture 
of  Diana  (from  the  antique),  and  have  also  made  an  octahedron 
on  a  new  principle  and  found  out  a  lot  of  things  in  geometry." 
But  the  great  event  of  his  school  life,  and  that  which  was  the 
opening  of  his  scientific  career,  we  find  in  the  fact  that  his  father 
began  to  take  him  when  he  had  reached  the  age  of  fifteen  to  the 
meetings  of  the  Edinburgh  Society  of  Arts  and  of  the  Edinburgh 
Royal  Society.  At  that  time  a  Mr.  Hay,  a  decorative  painter, 
was  attracting  attention  by  his  attempts  to  reduce  beauty  in  form 
and  color  to  mathematical  principles.  These  attempts  strongly 
interested  Maxwell,  and  especially  the  problem  how  to  draw  a  per- 
fect oval.  He  had  just  begun  the  study  of  Conic  Sections,  and 
he  became  eager  to  solve  this  problem.  The  result  was  that  he 
wrote  a  paper,  amply  illustrated  by  diagrams,  on  "  The  Descrip- 
tion of  Oval  Curves,  and  those  having  a  plurality  of  Foci,"  which 
so  pleased  Professor  Forbes  of  the  University  that  he  proposed 
to  his  father  to  have  it  brought  before  the  Royal  Society.  This 
was  accordingly  done.  It  was  communicated,  however,  by  Pro- 
fessor Forbes,  as  it  seemed  hardly  suitable  for  a  boy  of  fifteen  in 
round  jacket  to  mount  the  rostrum  of  the  Edinburgh  Royal  So- 
ciety. The  communication  is  printed  in  the  "  Proceedings  "  of  the 
Society  for  1846,  with  accompanying  remarks  of  Professor  Forbes, 
in  which  he  compares  Descartes'  method  of  describing  Ovals  with 
that  of  Maxwell's,  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  Maxwell's.  He 
left  the  Academy  in  1847,  when  he  was  sixteen.  In  his  last  year, 


JAMES   CLERK  MAXWELL.  549 

though  he  was  a  twelvemonth  younger  than  his  competitors,  he 
was  first  in  English  and  in  Mathematics,  and  came  near  to  being 
first  in  Latin.  Thus  far,  though  the  bent  of  his  genius  was  mani- 
festly to  science,  still,  to  use  Professor  Campbell's  expression,  he 
had  not  yet  "  specialized."  The  Professor  adds  that  his  friend 
said  to  him  often  in  later  years  that  the  study  of  the  classic 
writers  he  counted  "one  of  the  best  means  for  training  the 
mind."  He  tells  us,  too,  that  he  has  found  among  papers  some  of 
his  exercises  in  Latin  verse,  and  that  like  everything  which  he  did 
they  are  stamped  with  his  peculiar  character.  In  the  last  year 
the  class  had  lessons  for  the  first  time  in  Physical  Science,  and 
here  Maxwell  had  for  a  competitor  his  friend  P.  G.  Tait,  now 
Professor  of  Physical  Science  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 
The  biographer  remarks  that  Maxwell  and  Tait,  who  were  the  two 
best  mathematicians  in  the  school,  were  thought  by  the  boys  to 
know  more  about  the  subject  than  the  teacher  did.  Doubtless 
this  was  true,  nor  is  it  the  only  instance  in  the  annals  of  educa- 
tion of  a  pupil  being  wiser  than  his  master. 

Maxwell's  student  life  began  at  sixteen  at  the  University  of 
Edinburgh,  where  he  spent  three  years,  without,  however,  taking 
a  regular  course  for  a  degree.  His  chief  occupations  here,  both 
in  lectures  and  in  private  study  and  experiments,  were  in  Mathe- 
matics with  Professor  Kelland,  Chemistry  with  Professor  Greg- 
ory, and  Natural  Philosophy  with  Professor  Forbes.  By  Profes- 
sor Forbes  he  was  at  this  time  spoken  of  as  a  discoverer  in  Nat- 
ural Philosophy  and  an  original  worker  in  Mathematics.  His 
letters  of  this  period,  especially  those  to  Professor  Campbell,  who 
was  then  at  the  University  of  Glasgow,  are  full  of  interesting 
accounts  of  the  lectures  he  attended,  of  his  own  experiments,  and 
also  of  his  reading,  which,  to  judge  from  the  notes  given  to  his 
friend  of  the  books  he  read,  was  exact  as  well  as  various  and  ex- 
tensive. During  all  this  period  he  was  allowed  to  work  in  the 
laboratories  of  physics  and  chemistry  without  supervision,  and  in 
this  way  he  taught  himself  much  by  experiment  which  other  men 
were  learning  with  difficulty  from  lectures  and  books.  Among 
the  results  of  these  labors  were  two  elaborate  papers  read  to  the 
Edinburgh  Royal  Society,  and  printed  in  their  "  Transactions  "  of 
1849  and  1850,  the  one  on  "  The  Theory  of  Rolling  Curves,"  the 
other  on  the  "  Equilibrium  of  Elastic  Bodies."  From  other 
courses  of  lectures,  however,  he  gained  both  intellectual  nutri- 
ment and  stimulus.  He  attended  Professor  Wilson  in  Moral  Phi- 


550  JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL. 

losophy,  but  here  he  gained  more  advantage  from  his  own  reading 
and  reflection  than  from  the  lecturer,  who  certainly  achieved  more 
in  literature  as  Christopher  North  than  as  Professor  Wilson  in 
Ethics.  Maxwell's  resume,  in  a  letter  to  Campbell,  of  his  studies 
in  Moral  Philosophy  show  what  a  firm  grasp  of  the  subject  he 
had  made  at  the  age  of  nineteen ;  and  his  criticism  of  Wilson, 
given  in  a  single  sentence,  is  one  that  would  do  credit  to  an  older 
head.  He  says :  "  Wilson's  lectures  on  Moral  Philosophy  resolve 
themselves  into  three  things,  the  excellence  of  happiness,  the  ac- 
quireduess  of  conscience,  and  general  good  humor,  philanthropy, 
and  <f>tXayaOia."  But  he  was  profoundly  and  permanently  im- 
pressed by  the  lectures  on  Logic  and  Metaphysics  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton,  to  whom  he  was  strongly  drawn,  declared  foe 
though  Sir  William  was  to  the  mathematical  science.  His  ad- 
miration was  excited  by  Hamilton's  scholarship,  and  his  curiosity 
was  fed  by  his  exhaustless  learning,  and  especially  was  his  mind 
quickened  and  stimulated  by  the  Professor's  speculative  discus- 
sions. The  effect  thus  produced  by  Sir  William  Hamilton  upon 
the  youthful  mind  of  this  one  of  his  pupils  well  illustrates  the 
Professor's  view  of  the  study  of  Metaphysics  as  "  the  best  gym- 
nastic of  the  mind."  It  proved  to  be  a  very  productive  discipline 
for  Maxwell,  as  is  shown  by  the  exercises  which  he  brought  in 
while  a  member  of  the  Logic  and  Metaphysics  classes.  One  of 
these,  a  remarkable  paper  for  a  youth  of  seventeen,  on  the  subject 
of  the  "  Properties  of  Matter,"  is  given  in  full  in  the  biography. 

Maxwell's  next  three  years,  from  nineteen  to  twenty-two 
(1851—54),  were  spent  in  undergraduate  life  at  Cambridge.  He 
was  first  entered  at  Peterhouse,  and  kept  his  first  term  there ;  but 
he  then  migrated  to  Trinity,  with  the  hope,  in  which  he  was  not 
disappointed,  that  the  larger  college  would  afford  him  ampler 
opportunities  for  self-improvement.  In  his  first  year  he  was  busy 
in  lectures  and  private  study  with  Classics  and  Mathematics. 
The  college  mathematical  lectures  he  felt  to  be  rather  elementary ; 
but  he  worked  at  hard  problems  with  his  friend  Tait,  and  also  his 
tutor  Mr.  Porter.  In  the  Classics  he  studied  Demosthenes  and 
Tacitus  ;  also  the  "Ajax  "  of  Sophocles,  the  choral  odes  of  which 
he  translated  into  rhymed  English  verses.  Towards  the  end  of 
the  year  he  was  a  pupil  of  the  celebrated  mathematical  tutor 
Hopkins,  and  also  attended  the  Physical  Science  lectures  of  Pro- 
fessor Stokes.  Early  in  1852  he  passed  the  little-go  examina- 
tion, and  in  April  of  the  same  year  passed  successfully  his  exami- 


JAMES   CLERK  MAXWELL.  551 

nation  for  a  scholarship.  Now  began  his  vigorous  preparation  for 
the  Mathematical  Tripos,  under  his  tutor  Hopkins.  But  in  the 
midst  of  these  occupations  he  contributed  various  papers  to  the 
"  Cambridge  and  Dublin  Mathematical  Journal,"  and  also  found 
time  to  write  two  poems,  the  one  the  "  Lay  of  King  Numa,"  the 
other  the  most  serious  of  his  poems,  entitled,  "  The  Student's 
Evening -Hymn."  In  this  year,  too,  he  became  a  member  of  the 
Select  Essay  Club,  composed  of  Cambridge  choice  spirits,  a  club 
which  was  familiarly  known  by  the  name  of  The  Apostles,  because 
limited  to  the  number  of  twelve.  Some  of  his  contributions  to 
this  club  for  this  year  and  several  succeeding  years  are  printed  in 
his  biography,  and  illustrate  the  activity  and  the  fullness  of  his 
mind,  and  also  the  firm  grasp  with  which  he  seized  upon  those 
great  questions  which  hover  on  the  borders  of  the  physical  and 
the  moral  and  metaphysical  sciences.  From  the  biographer's 
words  we  readily  see  that  Maxwell  was  in  nothing  behind  the 
very  chiefest  of  these  Cambridge  Apostles  ;  he  ranked  indeed  all 
the  Cambridge  men  of  his  times,  as  has  been  distinctly  asserted 
by  one  of  his  college  contemporaries,  Rev.  Dr.  Butler,  the  now 
distinguished  headmaster  of  Harrow  School.  He  says  of  him : 
"  Maxwell's  position  among  us  was  unique.  He  was  the  one 
acknowledged  man  of  genius  among  the  undergraduates  "  of  our 
time.  But  I  may  not  linger  on  this  undergraduate  period,  and 
will  only  add  what  crowns  its  end,  that  at  the  Tripos  examination 
in  Mathematics  he  came  out  Second  Wrangler,  and  in  the  yet 
higher  ordeal  of  the  Smith's  Prizes  for  excellence  in  Natural 
Philosophy  and  Mathematics,  he  came  out  First  Prize-man.  Pro- 
fessor Tait  gives  us  to  understand  that  though  Maxwell  had 
Hopkins  for  his  tutor,  yet  he  always  took  his  own  way,  and  that 
he  at  last  got  his  position  by  sheer  strength  of  intellect  and  not 
at  all  by  the  usual  technical  training  for  prize  work.  Maxwell 
remained  two  years  at  Cambridge  after  taking  his  degree,  having 
gained  a  Fellowship  in  1855.  These  were  years  in  which  his 
many-sided  nature  was  in  full  activity.  As  Fellow  he  lectured  on 
Optics,  and  also  had  a  large  share  in  preparing  undergraduates 
for  their  degree  and  honor  examinations.  He  read,  too,  more 
widely  than  ever  in  Metaphysics  and  English  Literature.  He 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  Ray  Club,  "  without,  however,  for- 
saking the  assembling  of  the  Apostles,"  contributing  essays  to 
both  clubs.  He  also  renewed  and  carried  on  his  physical  re- 
searches, especially  in  Electricity  and  Magnetism,  and  developed 


552  JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL. 

the  germs  of  his  future  work  on  these  sciences  in  a  celebrated 
paper  on  "  Faraday's  Lines  of  Force,"  which  was  printed  in  1856 
in  the  "  Transactions  of  the  Cambridge  Philosophical  Society." 

In  the  year  1856  Maxwell  entered  upon  his  duties  as  Professor 
of  Natural  Philosophy  at  Marischal  College,  Aberdeen ;  and  with 
this  event  closes  his  preparatory  student  life,  and  begins  that 
career  as  professor  and  acknowledged  master  in  physical  science 
in  which  he  went  on  with  increasing  usefulness  and  honor  to  the 
time  of  his  death,  in  1879,  at  the  age  of  forty-seven.  During  this 
period  of  twenty-three  years  his  life  was  incessantly  devoted  to 
the  advancement  of  science  by  his  teaching  in  the  lecture-room, 
by  his  original  investigations  in  the  laboratory,  and  by  his  writings 
in  the  form  both  of  scientific  papers  and  treatises.  For  four  years 
he  was  professor  at  Aberdeen,  and  for  the  five  next  following 
years  he  was  professor  in  King's  College,  London.  From  this 
latter  post  he  retired  in  1865,  partly  to  give  himself  to  the  care  of 
his  estate  at  Glenlair,  but  chiefly  to  get  time  to  embody  in  perma- 
nent works  the  results  of  his  physical  researches.  Glenlair  was 
thus  his  home  for  five  years,  but  during  all  these  years  he  was 
either  moderator  or  examiner  in  the  Mathematical  Tripos  at 
Cambridge,  where  his  influence  was  more  and  more  felt ;  and  his 
work  at  Cambridge  in  this  interval  proved  to  be  directly  prepara- 
tory to  his  appointment  in  1871  to  the  chair  of  Experimental 
Physics  then  just  created  at  Cambridge,  and  to  his  return  to  the 
place  of  his  university  education,  and  to  those  last  eight  years  of 
his  most  active  and  fruitful  labors  in  this  conspicuous  and  impor- 
tant position.  The  reader  pauses  with  the  biographer  at  occa- 
sional breaks  in  the  otherwise  continuous  narrative  of  busiest 
scientific  work,  which  open  to  him  views  of  Maxwell's  personal 
history  in  the  mention  of  events  sometimes  bright,  sometimes  sad, 
which  throw  their  mingled  lights  and  shades  over  the  picture  of 
his  life.  The  place  at  Aberdeen  had  had  for  him  a  chief  attrac- 
tion in  the  thought  that  it  would  please  his  father,  and  that  by  the 
arrangement  of  term  and  vacation  time  he  might  be  with  him  at 
Glenlair  during  a  considerable  part  of  the  year.  His  father  was 
equally  interested  in  the  plan,  and  in  his  declining  years  and  in 
failing  health  he  "  was  roused  by  the  thought  of  it  to  something  of 
his  earlier  vigor."  But  alas  !  for  human  hopes  ;  when  all  seemed 
sure,  and  in  immediate  prospect,  just  before  the  son's  election  to 
the  professorship,  the  father  suddenly  died.  For  the  surviving  son 
it  was  a  grievous  shock  to  his  whole  being, —  the  second  great  grief 


JAMES   CLERK   MAXWELL.  553 

of  his  life,  second  in  time  to  the  loss  of  his  mother  in  his  boy- 
hood, hardly  second,  certainly  more  than  equal,  in  the  piercing 
sense  of  bereavement  it  brought  him.  It  was  a  loss  incalculable 
and  irreparable.  His  letters  of  this  time  show  how  deeply  it 
moved  him,  how  he  lived  over  in  thought  and  feeling  all  the  years 
of  dear  companionship  with  this  father-friend,  how  he  joined 
the  memories  of  him  with  the  now  quickened  memories  of  his 
mother  lost  long  before,  how  in  sleeping  and  in  waking  hours 
their  mortal  forms  seemed  to  be  hovering  about  him,  their  faces 
looking  upon  him,  and  bearing  traces  of  the  weakness  and  pain 
they  suffered  in  their  last  days.  A  few  months  after,  when  his 
friend  Campbell  visited  him  at  Glenlair,  he  put  into  his  hands  a 
poem  in  which  his  feelings  had  found  some  relief  of  expression, 
a  few  lines  of  which  I  will  here  quote  : — 

"  Yes,  I  know  the  forms  that  meet  me  are  hut  phantoms  of  the  brain, 
For  they  walk  in  mortal  bodies,  and  they  have  not  ceased  from  pain. 
Oh,  the  old  familiar  voices  !  Oh,  the  patient  waiting  eyes! 
Let  me  live  with  them  in  dreamland,  while  the  world  in  slumber  lies. 
They  will  link  the  past  and  present  into  one  continuous  life  ; 
While  I  feel  their  hope,  their  patience,  nerve  me  for  the  daily  strife, 
For  it  is  not  all  a  fancy  that  our  lives  and  theirs  are  one, 
And  we  know  that  all  we  see  is  but  an  endless  work  begun. 
Part  is  left  in  nature's  keeping,  part  has  entered  into  rest  ; 
Part  remains  to  grow  and  ripen,  hidden  in  some  living  breast." 

While  the  sense  of  this  loss  was  still  fresh,  there  came  another 
in  the  death  of  a  Mr.  Pomeroy,  an  intimate  friend  in  his  Cam- 
bridge student  days,  and  whom  he  had  nursed  there  in  a  severe  ill- 
ness, who  died  in  India,  whither  he  had  gone  but  a  year  before  to 
take  a  position  as  magistrate  in  the  East  India  Company's  ser- 
vice. Here,  too,  we  see  from  his  letters  how  keenly  he  felt  this 
blow,  and  what  profound  thoughts  of  human  life  and  destiny  it 
awakened  within  him.  But  in  our  human  life  there  comes  at 
times  a  bright  summer  after  the  sharpest  winter,  and  so  it  was 
with  Clerk  Maxwell.  The  old  home  at  Glenlair,  which  for  two 
years  had  been  lonely  and  sad  through  the  death  of  the  father, 
became  a  new  and  glad  one  again  for  the  son,  when  of  a  "  rare 
day  "  in  June,  1858,  he  brought  to  it  his  wife,  to  whom  he  had 
been  married  in  Aberdeen  early  in  that  month.  His  wife  was 
Katheriiie  Dewar,  daughter  of  Principal  Dewar  of  the  Marischal 
College  at  Aberdeen.  He  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Prin- 
cipal Dewar  and  his  family  soon  after  coming  to  Aberdeen,  with 
whom  he  was  brought  into  quick  sympathy  by  the  brightness  of 


554  JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL. 

his  social  nature,  his  deep  and  varied  knowledge,  and  also  by  his 
religious  views  and  character.  In  the  September  vacation  of  1857 
he  had  accepted  an  invitation  to  join  Mr.  Dewar  and  his  daughter 
in  a  visit  to  the  Principal's  son-in-law  at  Dunoon,  near  Glasgow  ; 
and  it  seems  to  have  been  there  that  Maxwell's  acquaintance  with 
Miss  Dewar  ripened  to  mutual  love.  Let  me  stay  here  a  moment 
to  note  how  the  varied  experiences  of  life,  the  saddest  and  the 
brightest,  make  their  own  mark  and  find  their  own  experience 
in  a  nature  rich  with  gifts  both  of  thought  and  sensibility.  On 
my  first  taking  up  this  volume  of  biography  I  opened  upon  a  little 
poem  by  Maxwell,  entitled,  "  The  Song  of  the  Atlantic  Telegraph 
Company."  From  curiosity  I  read  it  through,  to  my  amusement 
as  well  as  instruction.  Hitherto  I  had  thought  of  Clerk  Maxwell 
only  as  a  grave  man  of  science,  always  associating  his  name  with 
atoms  and  molecules  and  molecular  Physics.  But  here  I  read 
verses  of  his  in  a  sportive  and  even  rollicking  movement,  and  yet 
the  force  of  the  movement  all  in  science,  showing  me  how  in  that 
mind  there  ran  a  vein  of  poetic  feeling  in  the  midst  of  all  those 
rich  veins  of  scientific  genius.  But  it  was  not  till  I  read  the  vol- 
ume in  course  that  I  found  out  that  the  immediate  impulse  of 
these  verses  came  from  the  heart,  for  they  were  written  in  the  Sep- 
tember vacation  at  Dunoon  when  there  had  just  come  to  him  that 
new  joy  which  was  to  prove  the  deepening  and  abiding  joy  of  all 
his  after  life.  The  poem  occurs  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Campbell, 
which  unlike  those  other  letters  of  this  period  to  which  I  have 
referred  shows  us  Maxwell  "in  his  brightest  mood."  He  brings 
in  the  verses  thus:  I  had  been  "writing,"  he  says,  "to  Professor 
Thomson  about  the  rings  of  Saturn,  and  lo !  he  was  laying  the 
telegraph  which  was  to  go  to  America,  and  bringing  his  obtrusive 
science  to  bear  upon  the  engineers,  so  that  they  broke  the  cable 
with  not  following  (it  appears)  his  advice."  l 

Maxwell's  marriage  was  a  true  union  of  mutual  affection,  of 
sympathy  in  all  great  and  good  things,  science,  literature,  religion, 
and  in  the  personal  experiences  of  life  in  joy  and  sorrow,  in  sick- 
ness and  in  health.  Twice  when  he  suffered  from  "  severe  illnesses, 
both  of  a  dangerously  infectious  nature,"  Mrs.  Maxwell  was  his 
nurse,  and  in  the  first  of  these,  when  he  was  attacked  with  small- 

1  This  jingle  consists  of  four  verses,  in  each  of  which  occurs  twice  the 
refrain  :  "  Under  the  sea,  under  the  sea."  By  way  of  combining  algebra  and 
poetry  this  is  printed  in  each  case  :  "  2  (U)  ; "  i.  e.  U  =  "  Under  the  sea,"  and 
consequently  "2  (U)  "  =  "  Under  the  sea,  under  the  sea." 


JAMES   CLERK  MAXWELL.  555 

pox,  "  she  was  quite  alone  with  him  ;  and  he  has  been  heard  to 
say  that  by  her  assiduous  nursing  she  saved  his  life."  In  the  last 
years  of  his  life,  when  his  wife  was  a  sufferer  from  a  painful  and 
protracted  illness,  he  was  in  turn  her  nurse,  at  one  period  not 
sleeping  in  a  bed  for  three  weeks,  and  yet  conducting-  his  work  in 
lectures  and  the  laboratory  as  usual.  His  letters  to  his  wife,  when- 
ever he  was  away  from  home,  are  abundantly  illustrative  of  his 
devotion  to  her,  and,  as  his  biographer  says,  of  "  the  almost  mysti- 
cal manner  in  which  he  regarded  the  marriage  tie."  A  single 
passage  touching  these  letters  I  quote  from  Professor  Campbell : 
"  When  attending  meetings  of  scientific  associations  or  conducting 
examinations  at  other  universities,  and  when  '  most  pressed  with 
the  load  of  papers  to  be  read,'  he  would  write  to  her  daily,  some- 
times twice  a  day,  telling  her  of  everything,  however  minute, 
which,  if  she  had  seen  it,  would  have  detained  her  eye,  small 
social  matters,  grotesque  or  graceful,  together  with  the  lighter 
aspects  of  the  examinations,  and  college  customs,  such  as  the 
'  grace-cup.'  .  .  .  And  sometimes  he  falls  into  the  deeper  vein, 
which  was  never  long  absent  from  his  communion  with  her,  com- 
menting on  the  portion  of  Scripture  which  he  knew  she  was  read- 
ing, and  passing  on  to  general  meditations  on  life  and  duty."  Of 
this  last  remark  let  me  quote  a  single  illustration  from  a  sentence 
in  one  of  these  letters :  "  I  am  always  with  you  in  spirit,  but  there 
is  One  who  is  nearer  to  you  and  to  me  than  we  can  ever  be  to 
each  other,  and  it  is  only  through  Him  and  in  Him  that  we  really 
get  to  know  each  other.  Let  us  try  to  realize  the  great  mystery 
in  Ephesians  v.,  and  then  we  shall  be  in  our  right  position  with 
respect  to  the  world  outside,  the  men  and  women  whom  Christ 
came  to  save  from  their  sins."  It  was  in  his  home  at  Glenlair, 
made  happy  by  such  a  union  in  married  life,  that  Maxwell  spent 
the  six  years  from  1865  to  1871,  busied  with  most  congenial  work 
in  experimental  researches  and  in  the  composition  of  his  scientific 
books,  especially  the  three  treatises,  "  Electricity  and  Magnetism," 
"  Heat,"  and  "  Matter  and  Motion ;  "  in  active  correspondence,  too, 
with  personal  and  scientific  friends,  older  ones,  such  as  Campbell, 
and  Professors  Forbes  and  Fleeming  Jenkins,  and  Sir  William 
Thomson,  and  others  of  later  years,  and  especially  Faraday  and 
Tyndall,  as  well  as  men  in  other  professional  pursuits.  Thus  was 
he.  still  occupied,  and  with  no  desire  for  any  change,  when  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1871,  the  chair  of  Experimental  Physics  was  founded  in 
the  University  of  Cambridge.  In  October,  1870,  the  Duke  of 


556  JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL. 

Devonshire,  who  was  chancellor  of  the  University,  had  signified 
his  desire  to  build  and  furnish  a  physical  laboratory  for  Cam- 
bridge ;  and  it  was  in  connection  with  the  acceptance  of  this  offer 
that  the  new  professorship  was  established  by  the  Senate.  On  the 
question  arising,  who  should  be  the  first  professor,  Sir  William 
Thomson's  name  was  the  first  one  before  the  university  Senate,  but 
on  his  declining  to  stand  all  interested  in  the  question  turned  to 
Maxwell  as  the  best  man  for  the  post.  At  first  he  was  quite 
unwilling  to  leave  his  retirement  for  any  academic  position,  but 
was  finally  induced  to  be  a  candidate,  on  condition  that  he  might 
withdraw  at  the  end  of  a  year  if  he  wished  to  do  so.  He  was 
accordingly  elected  unanimously  on  the  eighth  of  March.  He 
was  now  within  a  few  months  of  forty  years  of  age,  in  the  ripe- 
ness of  his  powers  and  his  fame,  and  of  ample  experience  in  lec- 
turing and  teaching  and  in  experimental  work ;  and  with  such 
resources  he  immediately  entered  upon  those  labors  which  resulted 
in  what  has  been  called  by  Sir  William  Thomson  "  a  revival  of 
physical  science  at  Cambridge."  By  the  enactment  of  the  Sen- 
ate it  was  made  the  duty  of  the  professor  "  to  teach  and  illustrate 
the  laws  of  heat,  electricity,  and  magnetism ;  to  apply  himself  to 
the  advancement  of  the  knowledge  of  those  subjects,  and  to  pro- 
mote their  study  in  the  University."  He  began  his  lectures  in  the 
following  October  term,  opening  with  an  inaugural  in  which  he 
set  forth,  to  use  his  biographer's  words,  in  luminous  outline  what 
he  considered  to  be  "  the  meaning  and  the  tendency  of  the  move- 
ment in  the  evolution  of  the  University  of  Cambridge  which  was 
marked  by  the  institution  of  the  course  of  Experimental  Physics 
and  the  erection  of  the  Devonshire  Laboratory." 

This  lecture  and  the  lecture  on  "Color  Vision  "given  by  Maxwell 
the  same  year  at  the  Royal  Institution  are  pronounced  by  Profes- 
sor Campbell  to  be  the  happiest  of  his  literary  efforts.  Thereafter 
Maxwell  gave  annual  courses  of  lectures  on  the  subjects  prescribed 
in  his  commission,  on  Heat  and  the  Constitution  of  Bodies  in  the 
October  term,  Electricity  in  the  Lent  term,  and  Electro-Magnet- 
ism in  the  Easter  term.  For  some  time  after  his  appointment,  an 
important  part  of  his  work  consisted  in  designing  and  superintend- 
ing the  erection  of  the  laboratory,  which  was  called  by  the  Duke 
of  Devonshire  the  Cavendish,  in  honor  of  his  great-uncle,  Henry 
Cavendish,  and  in  commemoration  of  Cavendish's  researches  in 
physical  science.  Maxwell  inspected  the  laboratories  at  Glasgow 
and  Oxford,  and  embodied  in  the  new  structure  the  best  features 


JAMES   CLERK  MAXWELL.  557 

of  both ;  but  its  internal  appointments,  which  are  described  as  ad- 
mirably adapted  for  physical  investigations,  are  due  to  his  inven- 
tive skill  and  thoughtful  supervision.  The  building  finished,  the 
business  of  purchasing  and  then  arranging  a  complete  equipment 
of  apparatus  was  also  performed  by  him.  His  work  reached  its 
consummation  in  the  spring  of  1874,  and  on  the  16th  of  June  the 
chancellor  formally  presented  his  gift  to  the  university.  From 
this  time  forth  Maxwell  was  regularly  occupied,  along  with  his 
lecturing  and  his  own  experiments,  in  superintending  in  the  labo- 
ratory various  courses  of  experiments  undertaken  by  young  men 
who  were  aspiring  to  scientific  distinction ;  and  many  who  were 
then  his  pupils  now  rank  among  the  most  efficient  teachers  of  sci- 
ence throughout  the  United  Kingdom.  But  besides  this  distinctly 
professional  work,  Maxwell's  many-sided  nature  found  occupation 
during  the  Cambridge  period  in  many  other  labors,  both  scientific 
and  literary.  It  was  in  1873  that  he  delivered  his  discourse  on 
molecules,  at  Bradford,  before  the  British  Association,  which  has, 
perhaps,  become  more  generally  known  and  is  oftener  quoted  than 
any  other  of  his  writings.  In  1875  he  read  before  the  Chemical 
Society  a  paper  "  On  the  Dynamical  Evidence  of  the  Molecular 
Constitution  of  Bodies ; "  in  1876  a  lecture  on  thermo-dynamics, 
at  the  Loan  Exhibition  of  Scientific  Apparatus  in  London ;  and 
in  1878  his  Cambridge  Rede  Lecture  "  On  the  Telephone,"  illus- 
trating it  with  the  aid  of  Mr.  Gower's  telephonic  harp,  a  lecture 
which,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  opening  paragraph  given  in  the  bi- 
ography, must  have  been  highly  entei-taining  as  well  as  instructive. 
During  these  years  he  also  contributed  numerous  articles  to  the 
ninth  edition  of  the  "  Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  the  most  notable 
of  which  are  those  on  "Atom  "  and  "  The  Constitution  of  Bodies," 
and  the  article  on  "  Faraday."  In  this  later  Cambridge  period, 
as  well  as  in  the  earlier,  he  was  a  member  of  a  club  called  Eranus, 
differing  little  from  "The  Apostles,"  except  that  the  men  were 
older  and  the  disciissions  turned  generally  on  more  serious  themes. 
Dr.  Lightfoot  and  Professors  Hort  and  Westcott  were  among  the 
members  of  this  Eranus  circle.  Some  of  Maxwell's  contributions, 
which  are  given  in  the  volume,  are  discussions  of  speculative  ques- 
tions, which  illustrate  his  ever-increasing  soberness  of  spirit  as  the 
years  went  on ;  and  yet,  as  Mr.  Campbell  remarks,  this  spirit 
made  him  no  less  bright  as  a  companion,  "  but  rather  kept  fresh 
the  springs  of  cheerfulness  and  mirth  that  were  in  him."  We 
may  easily  believe  in  this  union  in  Professor  Maxwell  of  earnest- 


558  JAMES  CLERK   MAXWELL. 

ness  and  huinor ;  for  we  find  that  during  these  years,  in  intervals 
of  very  grave  occasions,  he  indulged  most  in  the  playful  impulses 
which  gave  birth  to  his  most  characteristic  serio-comic  verses.  He 
was  a  member  of  a  club  called  the  "  Red  Lions,"  composed  of 
members  of  the  British  Association  who  met  for  social  relaxation 
after  the  sober  work  of  the  day.  On  these  occasions  he  used  to 
produce  impromptu  poems  turning  on  the  subjects  just  discussed, 
condensing  the  very  pith  of  a  scientific  matter  into  a  few  pithy 
verses,  and  veiling  sharp  and  witty  satire  of  persons  and  opinions 
under  a  delightful  naivete  of  innocent  admiration.  Perhaps  the 
best  illustrations  of  these  jeux  d' esprit  are  those  which  belong  to 
the  meeting  of  the  British  Association  (or  as  the  "  Red  Lions  " 
called  it,  the  British  Ass.  meeting)  at  Belfast,  in  1874.  Mr.  Tyn- 
dall  was  then  president,  and  delivered  his  famous,  somewhat  mate- 
rialistic address  on  the  basis  of  the  old  atomic  theory  as  treated 
by  Lucretius.  At  one  of  the  sessions  Professor  Maxwell  read  a 
learned  paper  "  On  the  Application  of  Kirchhoff's  Rules  for  Elec- 
tric Circuits  to  the  Solution  of  a  Geometrical  Problem ; "  but  in 
the  evening,  at  the  "  Red  Lions,"  when  himself  and  his  confreres 
were  off  duty,  he  read  another  paper  hardly  less  learned  but  very 
much  livelier,  entitled  "Notes  on  the  President's  Address."  It 
was  a  poem,  in  hexameter  verses,  which  treated  the  doctrines  of 
the  address  with  a  wit  which  was  very  incisive  but  yet  good-hu- 
mored, and  tempered  with  soberest  truth.  It  was  afterwards  pub- 
lished in  "  Blackwood's  Magazine ;  "  and  singularly  enough  it  was 
translated  by  an  enthusiastic  English  Hellenist  into  Greek  hexam- 
eters, which  are  given,  together  with  the  poem  itself,  in  the  bio- 
graphy. 

But  the  chief  literary  work  of  Maxwell  during  the  last  seven 
years  of  his  life  was  the  editing  of  the  "  Electrical  Researches  "  of 
the  Hon.  Henry  Cavendish,  F.  R.  S.  Mr.  Cavendish  died  in  1810, 
leaving  behind  him  twenty  packets  of  manuscript  on  "  Mathemati- 
cal and  Experimental  Electricity."  These  manuscripts  were  com- 
mitted to  Maxwell  by  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  for  editing  and 
publication.  It  was  a  commission  which  cost  Professor  Maxwell 
protracted  and  exacting  labors.  He  copied  and  prepared  for  the 
press  nearly  all  the  manuscripts ;  wrote  numerous  letters  of  con- 
sultation about  them  to  scientific  men,  repeated  many  of  Caven- 
dish's experiments ;  and  wrote  an  introduction  and  notes,  which 
we  are  told  by  an  eminent  scientific  critic  "  evidence  much  labor, 
patient  investigation,  and  very  extensive  acquaintance  with  the 


JAMES   CLERK  MAXWELL.  559 

literature  bearing  on  the  subjects."  The  whole  was  finally  pub- 
lished in  a  large  octavo  volume  in  October,  1879,  only  a  few  weeks 
before  the  editor's  death.  The  task  thus  executed  by  Maxwell 
was  acknowledged  to  be  one  of  great  service  to  science ;  but  the 
thought  cannot  but  occur,  even  to  an  unscientific  reader  of  the  nar- 
rative of  this  part  of  his  life,  that  those  precious  years  might  bet- 
ter have  been  given  to  the  prosecution  of  his  own  original  re- 
searches. Professor  Campbell  mentions,  that  on  a  visit  to  his 
friend  in  1877,  Maxwell  took  out  of  his  cabinet  the  manuscript  of 
this  book,  and  talked  with  him  about  it  with  great  interest.  "  And 
what,"  asked  Professor  Campbell,  "  what  of  your  own  investiga- 
tions?" "Ah!"  he  answered,  "I  have  to  give  up  so  many 
things ;  "  and  the  words,  adds  the  biographer,  were  uttered  "  with 
a  sad  look,  which  till  then  I  had  never  seen  in  his  eyes."  Not 
strange  is  it  that  the  biographer  thus  recalled  and  ever  remem- 
bered that  strange,  "  sad  look  "  in  those,  to  him,  lifelong  familiar 
eyes,  when  he  afterwards  learned  that  already  his  friend  had  felt 
the  first  symptoms  of  that  malady  which  erelong  was  to  be  fatal 
to  his  earthly  life.  Maxwell's  health  had  been  good  till  the  spring 
of  that  year,  1877,  when  he  began  to  be  troubled  with  dyspeptic 
symptoms,  and  especially  a  painfully  choking  sensation  after  eat- 
ing. He  gained  temporary  relief,  however,  and  went  on  with  his 
work  without  seeking  medical  advice.  But  early  in  1879  the  trou- 
ble had  become  too  serious  for  longer  silence,  and  he  mentioned  it 
to  his  physician,  who  began  to  prescribe  for  it.  By  this  time  his 
friends  had  begun  to  miss  something  of  the  elasticity  of  his  step, 
something,  too,  of  his  wonted  energy.  At  the  end  of  the  Cam- 
bridge spring  term  he  went  as  usual  to  Glenlair,  and  during  the 
summer  seemed  there  to  be  better ;  but  in  September  the  symp- 
toms returned  with  attacks  of  violent  pain,  he  became  dropsical, 
and  his  strength  was  rapidly  failing.  That  he  might  be  nearer 
his  physician,  Dr.  Paget,  it  was  decided  to  remove  him  to  Cam- 
bridge, where  he  arrived  with  Mrs.  Maxwell  early  in  October. 
There  his  severer  sufferings  were  somewhat  relieved,  but  the  dis- 
ease made  rapid  progress.  In  answer  to  his  question,  how  long 
he  would  probably  live,  he  was  sadly  told  by  his  physician,  "  Not 
longer  than  a  month,"  words  which  he  heard  with  entire  compos- 
ure, "  the  calmness  of  his  mind,"  as  his  physician  said, "  being  just 
the  same  in  illness  and  in  the  face  of  death  as  it  ever  had  been 
in  health."  Only  one  anxiety  did  he  seem  to  have,  and  that  was 
to  provide  for  her  comfort  whom  he  now  saw  that  he  must  leave 


660  JAMES  CLERK   MAXWELL. 

behind.  Most  touching  is  it  to  read  how,  in  extreme  bodily  weak- 
ness, his  mind  continued  active  about  all  that  had  most  interested 
him  in  health.  A  single  little  incident  illustrates  his  habitual  de- 
vout spirit  as  still  blended  with  his  passion  for  inquiry.  On  one 
of  his  last  days,  when  he  had  been  lying  for  some  time  with  closed 
eyes,  he  looked  up  and  repeated  slowly  the  verse,  "  Every  good 
gift  and  every  perfect  gift  is  from  above  and  cometh  down  from 
the  Father  of  Lights,  with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow 
of  turning; "and  then, as  if  seized  with  a  suggestion  for  discovery, 
he  said  over  the  Greek  of  the  first  seven  words,  Trao-a  8d<ns  aya0»/  KOI 
irSiv  Swpijfia  TeAetov,  with  the  question, "  Do  you  know  that  that  makes 
an  hexameter  ?  I  wonder  who  composed  it  so."  In  the  ebbing 
away  of  his  bodily  strength,  his  mind  and  memory  remained  clear 
to  the  last.  A  day  or  two  before  he  died  the  parish  rector  came 
to  administer  the  Lord's  Supper  to  him ;  and  while  he  was  putting 
on  his  surplice  Maxwell  recalled  and  repeated  to  him  George 
Herbert's  lines  on  the  priest's  vestments,  entitled  "Aaron."  In 
his  last  hour,  when  his  voice  was  reduced  to  a  whisper,  he  spoke 
some  words  close  in  the  ear  of  his  physician,  but  these  related  not 
to  himself  but  to  his  wife.  Those  whispered  words  were  his  last, 
and  he  soon  passed  gently  away,  on  the  5th  of  November,  1879. 
So  ended  his  earthly  life,  an  end  in  harmony  in  this  as  in  all  else 
with  the  whole,  from  its  first  conscious  beginning. 

The  sketch  I  have  thus  given  you  of  this  life  from  the  biogra- 
pher's narrative  may  readily  suggest  what  I  am  incompetent  fully 
to  discuss,  the  valuable  services  which  Clerk  Maxwell  rendered  to 
the  world  in  the  discovery  and  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  the 
precious  gifts  by  the  possession  and  use  of  which  he  was  able  to 
render  them,  and  also  what  is  of  yet  greater  worth  to  the  world, 
the  character  which  illumined  with  its  moral  beauty  all  the  bright 
career  of  this  gifted  servant  in  science.  On  the  Sunday  after 
Maxwell's  funeral,  in  the  university  church  of  St.  Mary's,  it  fell 
to  the  lot  of  one  who  had  known  him  well  when  both  were  schol- 
ars of  Trinity  to  give  voice  to  his  own  and  the  general  sense  of 
loss,  —  Rev.  Dr.  Butler,  the  headmaster  of  Harrow  School.  In 
addressing  the  undergraduates  he  said :  "  There  are  blessings 
that  come  once  in  a  lifetime.  One  of  these  is  the  reverence  with 
which  we  look  up  to  greatness  and  goodness  in  a  college  friend." 
Very  attractive  and  impressive  is  this  truth  uttered,  so  simply  and 
so  nobly  in  the  presence  of  the  members  of  an  ancient  university, 
"  the  home  "  for  generations  "  of  thought  and  knowledge,"  con- 


JAMES   CLERK  MAXWELL.  561 

cerning  one  just  passed  away,  who  had  been  an  ornament  of  that 
university  alike  as  an  undergraduate  and  a  professor.  That  sen- 
timent of  reverence  possessed  so  early  by  the  speaker  had  been  a 
cherished  possession  in  all  after  years  ;  and  what  he  then  thought 
of  that  college  friend  was  the  same  as  he  drew  of  him  now  from 
the  ever  enlarging  experience  of  all  those  years.  And  all  that 
could  be  said  of  Clerk  Maxwell  by  the  most  discerning  student  of 
his  now  completed  life  and  labors  would  be  only  an  unfolding  of 
those  comprehensive  words  —  his  "  greatness  and  goodness."  He 
was  born  for  science,  endowed  with  rare  powers  for  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  phenomena  of  nature  and  the  discovery  and  teaching 
of  nature's  laws,  consecrated  to  such  science  by  vocation  and  by 
choice,  and  always  constant  in  the  keeping  of  his  consecration 
vows.  But  I  find  that  by  men  eminent  in  the  Mathematics,  no 
less  than  by  men  equally  eminent  in  Physics,  he  was  respectively 
claimed  as  theirs,  and  by  each  as  one  of  their  chiefs.  One  writer 
describes  him  as  being  in  clearness  of  mental  vision,  and  espe- 
cially in  his  habit  of  constructing  a  geometrical  representation  of 
every  problem  in  which  he  was  engaged,  "  a  mathematician  of  the 
highest  order."  In  his  aptitude  for  experimental  work  and  his 
success  in  it  he  has  been  ranked  with  Faraday,  for  whom  he 
always  had  the  profoundest  admiration  and  in  whom  he  found  a 
mind  of  his  own  type.  In  his  preface  to  his  treatise  on  electri- 
city and  magnetism  he  says  that  when  he  began  the  study  of  elec- 
tricity he  resolved  to  read  nothing  on  the  subject  till  he  had 
worked  through  Faraday's  "  Experimental  Researches,"  and  he 
always  advised  his  students  to  pursue  this  course.  Let  me  quote 
here  a  sentence  from  the  memoir  of  Maxwell  published  in  the 
*'  Proceedings  of  the  Royal  Society : "  "  It  is  seldom,"  says  the 
writer,  "  that  the  faculties  of  invention  and  exposition,  the  at- 
tachment to  physical  science,  and  the  capability  of  developing  it 
mathematically,  have  been  found  existing  in  one  mind  to  the  same 
degree.  It  would,  however,  require  powers  akin  to  Maxwell's 
own  to  describe  the  more  delicate  features  of  the  works  resulting 
from  this  combination,  every  one  of  which  is  stamped  with  the 
subtle  but  unmistakable  impress  of  genius."  I  have  noticed 
many  illustrations  of  this  remark  in  criticisms  of  Maxwell's  scien- 
tific papers  and  treatises.  It  was  said  by  Airy,  the  late  astrono- 
mer-royal, of  Maxwell's  essay  on  "  Saturn's  Rings,"  that  "  it  was 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  applications  of  Mathematics  to  Phy- 
sic which  he  had  ever  seen."  His  treatises  on  Physics  are  also  all 


562  JAMES   CLERK   MAXWELL. 

in  the  line  of  the  application  of  Mathematics  to  physical  inquir- 
ies. These  treatises  are  described  as  having  as  text-books  the 
great  merits  of  being  not  only  models  of  condensed  and  clear 
exposition,  but  also  as  being  original  and  fresh,  containing  the 
latest  accessions  to  knowledge  of  the  subjects  of  which  they  treat. 
Professor  Tait  says  of  them  that  they  give  the  science  of  to-day, 
while  most  text-books  in  vogue  give  the  science  of  twenty-five  or 
more  years  ago.  In  respect  to  this  last  merit,  I  find  a  curious 
illustration  of  Maxwell's  caution  as  well  as  readiness  in  setting 
down  "  the  last  results  of  science,"  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to 
Bishop  Ellicott.  The  bishop  had  written  to  him,  under  date  of  No- 
vember 21,  1876,  to  ask  for  the  true  scientific  view  of  "the  state- 
ment made  on  the  theological  side  that  the  creation  of  the  sun  pos- 
terior to  light  involved  no  serious  difficulty."  Maxwell  answers 
by  return  of  post,  saying,  first,  that  there  was  a  statement  in 
most  commentaries  that  the  fact  of  light  being  created  before  the 
sun  is  in  striking  agreement  with  the  last  results  of  science,  and 
that  he  had  often  wished  to  ascertain  the  date  of  the  original  ap- 
pearance of  the  statement,  as  this  would  be  the  only  way  of  find- 
ing out  what  "  last  result  of  science  "  it  referred  to.  Then  he 
proceeds  to  say :  "  If  it  were  necessary  to  provide  an  interpreta- 
tion of  the  text  in  accordance  with  the  science  of  1876  (which 
may  not  agree  with  that  of  1896)  it  would  be  very  tempting  to 
say  that  the  light  of  the  first  day  means  the  all-embracing  aether, 
and  not  actual  light."  But  this,  he  adds,  he  cannot  believe  the 
idea  meant  to  be  conveyed  by  the  author,  as  he  uses  light  as  rela- 
tive to  darkness.  In  the  third  place  he  suggests  that  "  we  natu- 
rally suppose  those  things  most  primeval  which  we  find  least  subject 
to  change,"  and  as  the  aether  which  fills  the  interspaces  between 
world  and  world  is  one  of  the  most  permanent  objects  we  know, 
we  should  be  "  inclined  to  suppose  that  it  existed  before  the  for- 
mation of  the  systems  of  gross  matter  which  now  exist  within  it." 
Finally,  he  says  that  he  should  nevertheless  be  sorry  if  an  inter- 
pretation founded  on  a  scientific  hypothesis  should  be  fastened  to 
the  text,  even  if  it  should  eliminate  "  the  old  statement  of  the 
commentators  which  has  long  ceased  to  be  intelligible,"  because,  on 
account  of  the  rate  of  change  in  scientific  hypotheses,  "  the  inter- 
pretation founded  on  such  an  hypothesis  may  help  to  keep  the 
hypothesis  above  ground  long  after  it  ought  to  be  buried  and  for- 
gotten." 

As  a  lecturer,  Professor  Maxwell  was  remarkable  for  placing 


JAMES   CLERK   MAXWELL.  563 

abstruse  principles  in  a  new  and  clear  light,  and  for  illustrating 
his  ideas  by  most  suggestive  comparisons.  When,  however,  he 
spoke  extempore,  he  was  too  rapid  in  his  thinking  and  expression 
for  most  hearers ;  while  his  written  addresses  shared  the  merits  of 
his  treatises  both  in  substance  and  in  form.  Of  his  distinctive 
qualities  as  a  teacher  less  is  said  in  the  biography  than  we  could 
wish  ;  but  we  learn  that  he  was  assiduous  in  promoting  the  pro- 
gress of  his  pupils  and  generous  in  the  time  and  labor  he  gave  to 
them  out  of  class  hours,  and  exact  and  exacting  in  his  preparation 
and  criticism  of  examination  papers.  In  his  letters  we  occasion- 
ally come  upon  sagacious  practical  remarks  in  regard  to  teaching. 
One  of  these  I  will  quote,  which  some  of  us  can  especially  appre- 
ciate just  after  a  vacation.  "  I  find,"  he  says,  "  that  the  division 
(of  pupils)  into  smaller  classes  is  a  great  help  to  me  and  to  them  ; 
but  the  total  oblivion  of  them  for  definite  intervals  is  a  necessary 
condition  of  doing  them  justice  at  the  proper  time."  With  Max- 
well, scientific  pursuits,  whether  in  lecturing  or  in  writing,  never 
narrowed  his  mind  in  its  range  of  interest ;  as  indeed  I  suppose 
they  are  never  narrowing  on  a  mind  of  so  high  an  order  as  his. 
Such  was  his  mind  that  it  could  not  be  limited  to  a  single  depart- 
ment of  intellectual  activity.  So  we  find  from  his  letters  and  his 
other  published  writings  that  he  loved  to  stray  away  into  fresh 
fields,  literature,  philosophy,  and  theology.  I  have  already  spoken 
of  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  English  literature,  and  especially 
English  poetry."  His  favorite  poets,  from  whom  he  was  fond  of 
reading  aloud  to  his  wife,  were  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  and  Milton, 
and  in  sacred  poetry,  George  Herbert  and  Keble.  In  one  of  his 
letters,  where  he  has  been  telling  a  friend  of  some  recent  literary 
readings,  he  adds :  "  A  little  literature  helps  to  chase  away  mathe- 
matics from  the  mind ;  "  and  in  another  letter  occurs  a  similar  ex- 
pression, which  also  curiously  shows  his  appreciation  of  Professor 
Tyndall  as  a  writer.  He  is  speaking  of  being  busy  on  some  lec- 
tures upon  "  Color,"  and  he  says  in  passing :  "  I  have  thus  been 
Tyndalising  my  imagination  up  to  the  lecture  point."  On  this 
head  I  will  add  only  a  remark  made  by  a  literary  friend  who 
knew  him  well :  "  His  critical  taste,  founded  as  it  was  on  his 
native  sagacity  and  a  keen  appreciation  of  literary  beauty,  was 
so  true  and  discriminating  that  his  judgment  was  in  such  matters 
quite  as  valuable  as  on  mathematical  writings." 

The  interest  in  metaphysical  studies  which  was  first  awakened 
in  him  in  his  Edinburgh  student  days  by  the  teachings  of  Sir 


564  JAMES   CLERK   MAXWELL. 

William  Hamilton  he  never  ceased  to  cherish,  and  his  writings 
gave  many  expressions  to  his  distinct  views  of  the  relations  be- 
tween Metaphysics  and  Physics.  One  such  expression  I  have 
read  in  his  review  in  the  English  journal  "  Nature  "  of  Professor 
Tait's  lectures  on  "  Recent  Advances  in  Physical  Science."  He 
has  been  speaking  of  the  contempt  which  Professor  Tait  pours 
upon  the  a  priori  Physics  of  non-experimental  (transcendental) 
philosophers,  and  then  goes  on  thus  in  his  best  vein  of  irony :  "  The 
study  of  this  a  priori  Physics  as  found  in  Hegel  and  others  is  a 
source  of  recreation  to  all  who  are  engaged  in  the  less  amusing 
researches  of  experimental  Physics.  In  modern  examinations, 
some  students  try  to  conceal  their  ignorance  by  giving  apparently 
plausible  answers  (crammed  from  such  pseudo-science),  which 
relieve  by  their  felicitous  absurdities  the  tedious  labors  of  the 
examiner.  Only  fancy  instead  of  the  weary  examiner  a  vigor- 
ous man  of  science,  and  of  the  timorous  candidate  some  great 
(absolute)  philosopher  before  whose  inner  vision  the  whole  world 
of  being  and  non-being  lies  open  ;  and  then  you  will  have  some 
faint  idea  of  the  way  in  which  such  philosophers  are  destined 
to  contribute  to  the  merriment  of  the  coming  race."  But  then 
he  proceeds  to  say  in  sober  earnest :  "  There  is  a  true  science  of 
Metaphysics  which  establishes  the  fundamental  ideas  of  all  know- 
ledge in  itself  and  its  origin,  and  this,  not  by  shutting  out  the 
facts  of  science,  but  by  calling  in  all  the  evidence  obtainable  from 
the  whole  circle  of  science."  In  one  of  his  letters  he  makes  a 
correlative  remark  on  the  side  of  Physics :  "  With  respect,"  he 
says,  "  to  the  '  material  sciences,'  they  appear  to  me  to  be  the 
appointed  road  to  all  scientific  truth,  whether  metaphysical,  men- 
tal, or  social."  ..."  Here  are  furnished  materials  more  than 
anywhere  else  for  the  investigation  of  the  great  question,  '  How 
does  knowledge  come  ? ' ' 

In  these  times,  when  men's  minds  are  often  sorely  tried  by  prob- 
lems touching  the  relations  of  faith  and  knowledge,  it  is  pro- 
foundly interesting  to  observe  how  Maxwell's  mind,  so  scientific 
in  bent  and  in  habit,  rested  ever  in  the  repose  of  sure  conviction 
in  the  truths  of  religion  alike  natural  and  revealed.  His  discourse 
on  molecules,  to  which  I  was  first  drawn  by  my  studies  in  Lucre- 
tius, is  not  only  instructive  for  men  of  science  by  its  rich  scientific 
matter,  but  also  for  all  thoughtful  readers  in  the  belief  which  he 
so  clearly  expresses  in  the  origin  not  only  of  the  material  uni- 
verse, but  also  of  its  ultimate  constituents  in  the  creative  power 


JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL.  565 

of  a  Supreme  Being.  He  agrees  with  Lucretius  in  believing  in 
the  existence  of  the  atom  or  the  atomic  molecule  as  the  indivisi- 
ble and  unchangeable  basis  of  matter  ;  like  Lucretius,  too,  he 
opens  to  us  sublime  views  of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  whether  in 
spaces  near  or  in  spaces  immeasurably  remote  ;  but  he  parts  com- 
pany with  Lucretius  when  he  tries  to  explain  from  matter  the 
origin  of  mind,  and  the  origin  of  matter  and  mind,  as  one  inde- 
pendent of  the  agency  of  a  Divine  Intelligence.  On  the  contraiy, 
Maxwell  infers  from  the  very  properties  of  these  units  of  all  mate- 
rial things  that  they  cannot  be  explained  by  any  causes  which  we 
call  natural,  or  by  any  theory  of  evolution ;  and  so  that  they  must 
have  been  created  ;  and  thus  he  lifts  us  to  the  conception  of  a 
Divine  Creator  of  all  worlds  and  of  all  beings  in  them. 

But  Clerk  Maxwell  was  also  a  firm  Christian  believer.  In  his 
biographer's  narrative,  in  his  own  essays,  and  in  his  correspon- 
dence, which  frequently  turns  upon  religious  subjects,  you  find 
nowhere  any  appearance  of  a  break  or  a  disturbance  in  the  con- 
tinuous, calm  current  of  his  Christian  faith.  The  faith  of  his 
mature  age  is  the  same  as  the  faith  of  his  childhood,  only  informed 
by  a  larger  intelligence  and  deepened  by  a  larger  experience,  that 
same  faith  which  was  born  in  him  through  his  mother's  instruction 
in  word  and  in  example,  so  that  it  was  given  him  to  continue  in 
the  things  he  had  learned,  knowing  of  whom  he  had  learned  them. 
He  was  brought  up  in  the  Scotch  church,  and  was  always  in  har- 
mony with  its  belief  and  practice,  and  so  far  as  it  appears  in  the 
biography,  never  left  its  communion.  But  as  his  biographer 
remarks,  "  his  deep  though  simple  faith  was  not  inclosed  in  any 
system ; "  and  he  once  said  himself  that  he  "  could  not  hold  his 
faith  in  bondage  to  any  set  of  opinions."  Here  as  in  science  and 
everywhere  else  his  mind  was  free,  independent,  open  in  action 
and  in  utterance.  It  would  have  been  foreign  to  his  whole  nature 
to  set  off  any  province  of  thought  or  belief  from  the  free  exercise 
of  his  faculties.  He  said  once  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  that  in 
Christianity  alone  of  all  religions  all  is  free,  and  that  it  disavows 
any  possessions  except  upon  the  tenure  of  freedom  ;  and  that  he 
had  no  sympathy  with  any  who  would  have  what  he  called  "  ta- 
booed grounds  "  in  the  Christian  religion  itself.  He  could  always 
worship  in  any  communion  where  he  found  Christian  teaching 
and  living.  When  he  was  at  Glenlair  or  in  any  other  part  of 
Scotland  he  usually  attended  the  Scotch  church,  but  so  early  as 
his  Edinburgh  school  days  he  often  also  attended  the  Episcopal 


5C6  JAMES  CLERK  MAXWELL. 

church,  so  that  he  grew  up  under  the  blended  influence  of  cate- 
chism and  preaching  and  services  both  of  the  Scotch  and  of  the 
English  church.  In  his  residence  at  Cambridge  he  was  a  com- 
municant and  regular  attendant  at  the  Trinity  Church,  Episcopal ; 
but  when  he  was  professor  in  King's  College,  London,  he  was 
wont  to  worship  in  a  Baptist  church.  On  this  last  fact  I  find  a 
rather  unexpected  passage  in  one  of  his  letters  from  London : 
"  At  Cambridge,"  he  says,  "  I  heard  several  sermons  from  excel- 
lent texts,  but  all  either  on  other  subjects  or  else  right  against  the 
text.  There  is  a  Mr.  Offord  on  this  street,  a  Baptist,  who  knows 
his  Bible,  and  preaches  it  as  near  as  he  can,  and  does  what  he  can 
to  let  the  statements  in  the  Bible  be  understood  by  his  hearers. 
We  generally  go  to  him  when  in  London,  though  we  believe  our- 
selves baptized  already."  The  freedom  in  all  religious  matters 
which  he  exercised  for  himself  he  freely  accorded  to  others.  He 
was  unwilling  to  condemn  men,  hardly  willing  to  judge  them,  for 
their  doctrinal  opinions ;  he  always  asked  how  they  lived  and  be- 
haved in  their  relations  to  their  fellow-men.  He  used  to  say  that 
"  he  had  no  nose  to  smell  heresy ; "  and  when  the  controversy  was 
going  on  at  Cambridge  against  Maurice  for  supposed  heresy,  his 
sympathies  were  with  Maurice ;  not  that  he  held  to  his  opinions, 
but  because  Maurice  was  persecuted  and  deprived  of  his  place  for 
holding  and  expressing  them.  But  Maxwell  was  equally  an 
enemy  to  indifferentism,  and  did  not  believe  in  "  ignoring  differ- 
ences or  merging  them  in  the  haze  of  what  was  called  a  common 
Christianity."  The  parish  minister  at  Cambridge,  the  rector  of 
Trinity  Church,  who  visited  him  and  conversed  with  him  almost 
daily  during  his  last  illness,  gives  us  in  a  single  sentence  the  chief 
elements  of  his  Christian  belief.  Professor  Maxwell's  "  illness," 
he  says,  "  drew  out  the  heart  and  soul  and  spirit  of  the  man  ;  his 
firm  faith  in  the  Incarnation  and  its  results,  in  the  full  suffering 
of  the  Atonement,  and  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  But  the 
character  of  the  man  was  more  than  all  his  doctrinal  or  his  scien- 
tific views,  more  than  his  intellectual  gifts  and  attainments.  His 
Glenlair  physician  says  of  him :  "  He  was  one  of  the  best  men  I 
ever  met,  and  a  greater  merit  than  his  scientific  attainments  is  his 
being  ...  a  most  perfect  example  of  a  Christian  gentleman." 
Many  were  the  virtues  of  his  personal  character,  simplicity,  sin- 
cerity, humility,  a  thoughtful  kindness  for  others,  a  gentleness  of 
spirit,  and  of  charity  and  of  tenderness  for  all  living  things ;  but 
underlying  all  these  and  absorbing  them  all  was  his  spirit  of 


JAMES   CLERK  MAXWELL.  567 

piety.  Not  long  before  his  death  he  said  to  a  friend  that  he  had 
been  occupied  in  trying  to  gain  truth,  and  that  it  was  but  little  of 
all  truth  that  man  could  gain,  but  that  it  was  something  to  "  know 
whom  we  have  believed"  Clerk  Maxwell  has  sometimes  been 
compared  with  Faraday,  to  whom  he  was  akin  as  a  Christian  no 
less  than  as  a  man  of  science.  I  have  recently  read  a  part  of  the 
"  Eloge  "  upon  Faraday  pronounced  before  the  French  Academy 
of  Science  by  M.  Dumas,  and  I  will  close  my  paper  by  quoting  the 
last  sentence  of  that  "  Eloge,"  as  one  equally  applicable  to  Max- 
well :  "  I  met  him  often  in  private  life  when  his  brilliant  discov- 
eries in  science  were  attracting  universal  interest;  but  in  my 
intercourse  with  him  I  forgot  science  in  the  scientist,  my  curiosity 
drawn  away  from  the  marvels  unveiled  by  him  in  physical  nature 
by  my  eager  desire  to  discover  the  secret  of  the  moral  perfection 
which  he  manifested  in  all  the  movements  of  his  soul." 


THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD  VON  KANKE. 

WRITTEN     FOR   THE    RHODE   ISLAND    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY,    APRIL 

16,  1889. 

You  will  pardon  me,  I  hope,  if  I  open  this  lecture  with  some 
personal  allusions,  as  these  make  the  real  introduction  to  it,  and 
explain  my  choice  of  its  subject.  When  I  was  in  Europe  two 
years  ago,  I  spent  some  weeks  in  the  city  of  Berlin,  and  revisited 
its  university,  that  central  seat  of  German  learning  and  scholar- 
ship and  education.  It  was  with  much  feeling  that  I  came'  back 
to  this  university,  where  more  than  forty  years  before  I  had  been 
a  student,  and  where,  in  attendance  upon  the  lectures  and  instruc- 
tions of  eminent  teachers,  and  in  companionship  with  fellow-stu- 
dents of  kindred  spirit  and  aims,  I  shared  the  stimulating  influ- 
ence of  the  intensely  intellectual  life  of  the  place  ;  indeed,  it  was 
with  a  quickened  step  and  a  quickened  beating  of  heart  that  I  re- 
entered  the  gateway  and  the  portal  of  the  university  building, 
traversed  again  the  halls  and  stairs  so  familiar  in  those  bygone 
days  to  my  willing  feet,  and  went  into  the  old  lecture-rooms  and 
sat  among  the  youth  of  the  present  generation,  listening  to  their 
professors,  from  whom,  in  their  day  and  in  their  turn,  they  were 
deriving  lessons  of  wisdom  and  knowledge.  Ah !  with  what  a 
subtle  charm  of  association  does  grateful  memory  invest  the  place 
which  in  our  youth  has  been  the  seat  of  delightful  studies,  and 
where,  under  the  guidance  of  inspiring  teachers,  we  have  had  al- 
luring vistas  opened  before  us  all  bright  with  ideals  of  effort  and 
attainment.  And  so  it  was  that  every  time  I  found  myself  again 
within  the  precincts  of  that  place,  my  thoughts  were  in  the  past ; 
as  I  sat  in  the  lecture-rooms,  familiar,  unchanged  as  they  seemed 
to  me,  yet  strange  were  the  faces  around  me,  and  the  voices  from 
the  cathedras,  were  they  never  so  eloquent,  were  strange  no  less ; 
and  as  I  looked  and  listened  I  insensibly  recalled  the  forms  and 
features  of  the  teachers  of  my  own  university  days,  and  seemed 
again  to  hear  their  inspiring  words.  But  gone  were  all  these  from 
the  scenes  of  their  labors,  gone  every  one,  most  of  them  years  be- 
fore, as  the  philosopher  Schelling,  Neander  the  church  historian, 


THE   HISTORIAN   LEOPOLD   VON  RANKE.  569 

and  Boeckh  the  prince  of  classical  philology  in  that  day ;  but 
one,  the  peer  of  them,  Leopold  von  Ranke,  had  passed  away  only 
in  the  preceding  year,  having  lived  on  in  his  extraordinary  intel- 
lectual career  past  the  age  of  ninety,  and  even  at  that  advanced 
age,  with  eye  undiramed  and  mental  force  unabated,  busied  daily 
till  within  ten  days  of  his  death  in  the  labor  of  historical  composi- 
tion. So  recent  had  been  his  departure,  and  so  fresh  the  sense 
of  loss  it  had  awakened,  that  his  name  was  still  often  mentioned, 
and  his  life  was  the  theme  of  conversation  in  university  circles 
and  of  many  memorial  writings.  With  all  that  I  thus  heard  and 
read  I  associated  the  memories  of  Ranke's  lectures,  which  I  had 
attended,  so  that  soon  after  my  return  home  I  wrote  the  lecture 
which  I  am  to  offer  you  this  morning.  My  subject  then  is,  the 
historian  Ranke's  life  and  labors,  to  a  general  view  of  which  I  ask 
your  attention  this  morning.  Far  from  attempting  the  task  of 
Ranke's  biography,  or  a  critical  examination,  or  even  a  complete 
enumeration  of  his  works,  I  purpose  to  speak  of  the  decisive  epochs 
of  his  life  as  we  find  them  in  the  period  of  his  school  and  univer- 
sity studies,  and  then  in  the  stages  of  his  career  as  an  historical 
student,  teacher,  and  writer;  and  to  draw  from  these  some  lessons 
which  have  value  in  their  relation,  not  alone  to  historical  criticism, 
but  also  and  yet  more  to  literature  and  education. 

Fortunate  were  the  beginnings  of  Ranke's  life  in  their  auspi- 
cious preparation  for  his  illustrious  career.  He  was  born  in  1795, 
in  the  small  but  ancient  town  of  Wiehe,  in  a  valley  of  the  river 
Unstrut,  picturesquely  nestled  amid  the  wooded  heights  of  the 
Kyffhaiiser,  in  the  Saxon  Thiiringen.  The  natural  charms  of  the 
valley  and  its  historic  associations  Ranke  described  with  a  fond- 
ness of  family  and  patriotic  pride,  in  some  reminiscences  of  his 
youth  which  he  recorded  in  advanced  age.  The  whole  region  was 
full  of  traditions  of  the  empire  of  the  Saxon  line.  Wiehe  itself 
had  been  in  the  eleventh  century  an  imperial  fortress,  and  near  by 
was  the  cloister  Memleben,  where  German  emperors  were  buried, 
where  also  Henry  I.  and  Otto  the  Great  ended  their  eventful  lives. 
Ranke  came  of  a  genuine  Saxon  family,  which  he  traced  back  to 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  of  which  he  writes :  "  The  ancestors 
known  to  us  were  all  clergymen."  They  were  men  of  the  best 
clerical  type  of  their  time,  sound  and  solid  in  body  and  in  mind, 
and  no  less  in  faith  and  character ;  liberally  educated  and  devoted 
to  their  ministerial  and  pastoral  labors.  Ranke's  father,  however, 
while  at  the  university  chose  legal  studies  rather  than  theological, 


570  THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD  VON  RANKE. 

and  subsequently  practiced  law,  though  uniting  with  it  the  care  of 
a  landed  estate  which  he  had  inherited  from  his  mother ;  but,  as 
his  son  testified,  his  chief  care  was  the  moral  and  religious  nurture 
of  his  children.  Of  his  mother  he  wrote  that  she  was  intellectual, 
and  with  a  "  certain  flush  of  poetry  "  in  her  nature,  which,  he 
adds,  was  foreign  to  the  father ;  that  she  was  of  very  kindly  dis- 
position, and  indefatigable  in  her  activity  for  her  family.  From 
the  home  of  such  parents  the  boy  passed  out  at  the  age  of  twelve, 
to  enter  upon  a  seven  years'  course  of  classical  studies,  prepara- 
tory to  the  university,  a  period  of  prime  significance  in  his  life ;  it 
was  the  spring-time  of  the  scholar,  when  were  implanted  in  him 
the  germs  out  of  which  blossomed  and  ripened  in  orderly  growth 
all  his  after  intellectual  character.  We  seem  to  see  a  foreshadow- 
ing of  the  scholarly  seclusion  which  was  germane  to  his  subsequent 
life,  that  these  studies  were  pursued  in  cloister-schools,  that  is,  in 
schools  which  at  the  Reformation  were  formed  out  of  the  secular- 
ized estates  of  medieval  monasteries ;  and  afterwards,  from  their 
retired  situation  within  their  walls  and  gates,  and  from  the  tradi- 
tional strictness  of  their  discipline,  had  something  of  a  monastic 
complexion  and  quality.  At  one  of  them,  the  school  of  Donndorf, 
only  a  few  miles  away  from  his  father's  house,  he  spent  two  years, 
busied  with  the  rudiments  of  learning,  and  making  much  progress 
in  Latin,  and  so  much  in  Greek,  he  says,  as  to  get  some  foretaste 
of  Homeric  poetry,  and  some  dim  visions  of  its  heroic  figures. 
But  the  most  and  the  best  of  his  early  education  he  received  at 
Schulpforta,  that  most  celebrated  of  all  the  cloister-schools  of  Sax- 
ony ;  famed  for  its  antiquity,  for  the  beauty  of  its  surroundings, 
for  the  wealth  of  its  endowments,  and  for  its  still  better  wealth  of 
generous  discipline  and  humane  culture.  In  his  reminiscences  he 
has  described  in  his  best  manner  its  natural  and  historic  features, 
the  scholarship  and  teaching  skill  of  its  instructors,  and  the  tone 
and  glow  of  studious  occupation,  which  pervaded  all  its  atmos- 
phere as  a  place  of  education.  A  genial  place  it  must  have  been 
for  a  susceptible  and  aspiring  youth,  its  venerable  buildings  tow- 
ering up  from  among  the  hills  and  woods  of  Prussian  Saxony,  and 
its  inner  life  rich  in  resources  of  instruction  and  private  study,  in 
regular  commemorative  services  and  cherished  usages,  and  memo- 
ries of  generations  of  great  and  good  men,  once  schoolboys  within 
its  walls.  To  some  of  his  teachers  here  he  was  indebted  for  their 
reading  with  him,  and  interpretation  of  German  poets,  especially 
Klopstock,  Schiller,  and  Goethe.  But  during  his  five  years' 


THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD  VON   RANKE.  571 

• 

Schulpforta  residence,  his  studies  were  chiefly  devoted  to  the  an- 
cient classics,  especially  the  poets,  Ovid  and  Virgil  of  the  Latin, 
and  of  the  Greek,  Homer  and  the  great  tragic  trio,  -ZEschylus,  So- 
phocles, and  Euripides.  The  JEneid  he  read  many  times,  and 
committed  it  to  memory.  The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  he  read 
through  three  times.  Of  the  differences  of  excellence  in  the 
Greek  tragic  poets  his  teacher  had  clear  views,  which  he  faith- 
fully impressed  upon  his  pupils.  For  Ranke  himself,  as  he  writes, 
.^Eschylus  remained  a  strange  writer  during  his  school  days ;  and, 
while  he  found  delight  in  Euripides,  his  favorite  poet  was  Sopho- 
cles, several  of  whose  tragedies  he  translated  into  German  Iam- 
bics ;  his  translation  of  the  "  Electra  "  he  sent  to  his  father  as  a 
birthday  gift.  "  In  short,"  he  writes,  "  the  horizon  of  the  ancient 
classic  world  compassed  us  about ;  we  lived  in  it,  heart  and  soul." 
But  let  me  add,  from  his  own  testimony,  that  this  young  German 
student  made  also  in  these  school  days  a  Christian  scholar's  study 
of  the  Bible.  "  The  Bible,"  he  said  at  that  time,  "  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all  culture ;  it  breathes  the  air  of  the  imperishable  and 
eternal."  Such  words  from  a  pupil  of  the  Schulpforta  remind 
one  of  the  motto  borne  on  the  arms  of  its  old  abbey :  "  This  is 
none  other  but  the  house  of  God  and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven  " 
(the  Pforta,  porta).  But  not  alone  from  the  past,  from  the  an- 
cient, was  his  education  in  these  years  drawn.  It  derived,  also, 
some  determining  influence  from  the  present,  and  the  intensely 
modern,  the  tumultuous  movements  and  changes  incident  to  those 
wars  of  Napoleon,  which  in  the  end  reconstructed  the  politics  of 
Europe.  He  saw  and  heard  the  array  and  tread  of  French  regi- 
ments and  troops  as  they  swept  by  the  doors  of  his  peaceful  clois- 
ter-school, bound  on  their  march  of  devastation  to  the  towns  and 
cities  of  Germany.  He  saw,  too,  the  retreat  of  the  French  army, 
now  frightfully  reduced,  after  the  catastrophe  of  Moscow,  and 
swift  thereupon  the  advance  of  the  allied  armies  on  their  way 
westward.  When  all  Germany  was  aroused  from  its  oppression, 
and  the  air  was  full  of  the  cry  for  liberation,  the  young  Ranke 
was  reading  in  school  the  "  Annals  "  and  the  "  Agricola  "  of  Taci- 
tus ;  and  the  patriotic  speeches  of  the  British  chiefs  and  of  Queen 
Boadicea  started  in  him  the  thought  that  that  ancient  conflict  of 
oppressed  and  oppressor  was  now  reversed  in  the  relations  of  the 
Germans  and  the  French;  "and  so,"  as  he  afterwards  said,  "within 
the  cloister  walls  and  in  the  midst  of  classical  studies  there  first 
emerged  to  the  view  of  my  mind  the  modern  world." 


572  THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD  VON  RANKE. 

From  the  Schulpforta  Rauke  proceeded  at  the  age  of  nineteen 
to  the  university  of  Leipsic,  entering  as  student  of  theology  and 
philology.  Iu  theology  he  studied  the  introductions  to  the  Old 
ami  New  Testaments  and  the  interpretation  of  some  of  the  Paul- 
ine Epistles,  but  it  was  a  labor  of  love  to  which  he  gave  himself 
in  a  rhythmical  translation  of  the  Psalms,  together  with  notes  in 
which  he  aimed  to  seize  and  express,  as  exactly  as  he  could,  the 
thoughts  of  every  one  of  these  remarkable  remains  of  sacred 
Scripture.  But  he  was  not  in  sympathy  with  the  then  existing 
Leipsic  theology ;  to  his  own  positive  faith  its  "  rationalism 
seemed  superficial  and  hollow."  His  chief  work  was  with  the 
professors  of  philology,  and  especially  Daniel  Beck  and  Gottfried 
Hermann.  Beck  was  a  man  of  erudition  in  history  and  literature  ; 
he  attended  his  lectures  and  was  a  member  of  his  philological 
seminary.  But  ever  memorable  for  him  were  Hermann's  lectures 
on  Pindar,  whose  lyric  muse  he  came  thus  for  the  first  time  to 
comprehend  and  love.  Yet  more  was  he  occupied  with  the  study 
of  Thucydides,  whom  he  read  through,  and  with  thoroughness ; 
making  extracts  and  notes  of  his  political  teachings  ;  "  a  great  and 
mighty  genius,"  he  says,  "  before  whom  I  bowed  low,  without 
venturing  to  translate  his  words ;  the  full  impression  of  the  origi- 
nal and  its  perfect  understanding  was  what  I  purposed."  From 
two  modern  sources,  however,  there  came  in  upon  his  studies  at 
this  time  a  powerful  influence.  The  one  was  Niebuhr's  "  Roman 
History,"  "  the  first  German  book  which  made  an  impression  upon 
him."  Niebuhr's  skillful  treatment  of  the  early  Roman  annals, 
and  his  narratives  breathing  a  true  classic  spirit,  drew  from  him 
the  hopeful  word,  "  that  in  modern  times,  too,  there  might  be 
great  historians."  A  like  influence  was  derived  from  Luther, 
whom  he  first  studied,  as  he  says,  to  learn  German  from  him,  and 
to  make  his  own  the  literary  diction  of  his  writings ;  but  after- 
wards he  was  powerfully  drawn  to  his  historic  personality  and  the 
historic  significance  of  his  times.  Von  Ranke's  university  resi- 
dence ended  in  1817,  when  he  took  his  degree  of  doctor  of  phi- 
losophy. In  the  following  year,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  he 
began  his  vocation  as  a  teacher  in  the  position  of  upper  master 
in  the  gymnasium  of  Frankfort  on  the  Oder.  Here  he  labored 
for  the  following  six  years,  imparting  to  his  pupils  with  enthusi- 
asm and  skill  the  resources  of  his  own  school  studies.  But  in 
such  leisure  hours  as  he  could  command  he  was  devoted  to  re- 
searches and  literary  labors  for  his  first  historical  work,  the  plan 


THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD  VON  RANKE.  573 

and  scope  of  which  he  had  already  formed.  For  this  his  philolo- 
gical studies  had  been  gradually  preparing  him.  Various  and  in- 
timate are  the  relations  of  classical  philology  to  history ;  the 
philological  sense  is  close  akin  to  the  historical,  and  the  mental 
processes  and  habits  of  a  well-trained  classical  scholar  are  a  good 
preparation  for  the  business  of  a  student  and  writer  of  history. 
Since  writing  this  sentence,  I  have  met  with  a  signal  testimony  to 
this  opinion  in  words  of  the  historian  Professor  Mommsen,  ad- 
dressed to  Von  Ranke  at  the  commemoration  of  his  ninetieth 
birthday.  "  What  I  would  fain  say,"  Professor  Mommsen  re- 
marks, "  applies  to  you  not  merely  as  historian,  but  also  as  phi- 
lologist ;  for  it  is  exactly  this  philological  quality  of  critically 
testing,  and  so  coming  to  know  every  separate  writing  and  every 
separate  writer,  which  is  one  of  your  finest  and  most  prominent 
characteristics."  So  it  was  that  Von  Ranke's  extended  and  exact 
reading  of  the  ancient  writers  drew  him,  through  the  influence  of 
Niebuhr  and  Luther,  to  the  study  of  the  literature  of  mediaeval 
and  then  of  that  of  modern  times ;  there  was  stirring  in  him  the 
ambition  to  do  some  worthy  service  as  a  literary  man ;  and  this 
grew  into  a  purpose  to  attempt  a  work  which  should  set  forth  the 
transition  from  mediaeval  to  modern  Europe.  So  singular  alike 
was  his  love  of  work  and  his  power  to  endure  it,  that  within  a 
few  years  he  achieved  the  mastery  of  all  European  literatures  so 
far  as  they  had  to  do  with  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries, 
and  in  1824  his  first  work  was  completed  and  published,  entitled 
"  The  Romanic  and  Teutonic  Peoples,  from  1494  to  1535."  This 
work,  published  by  the  author  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  is  the 
introduction  to  his  historical  works,  and  this  not  only  in  time  but 
in  the  nature  and  bearings  of  the  theme ;  for  in  the  unity  and  the 
union  of  the  fortunes  of  these  two  races  he  discerned  and  set  forth 
the  beginnings  of  modern  history.  It  is  also  a  work  of  great  value 
for  the  study  of  Von  Ranke  as  an  historian  ;  for  in  connection  with 
the  appendix,  which  is  devoted  to  a  criticism  of  modern  writers  of 
history,  it  contains  at  once  a  statement  and  an  illustration  of  the 
principles  and  method  of  historical  study  and  composition,  which 
he  had  already  adopted,  and  which  he  afterwards  fully  developed, 
as  I  shall  have  occasion  to  show  by  and  by.  He  modestly  con- 
fesses in  the  first  sentence  of  the  preface  that  his  "book  had 
seemed  more  perfect  to  him  in  manuscript  than  it  seemed  now  in 
print."  He  had  misgivings  especially  about  its  literary  form,  and 
felt  that  he  had  much  to  learn  as  a  writer.  He  had  read,  with 


574  THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD  VON  RANKE. 

admiration  for  their  style,  the  works  of  Augustin  Thierry,  and 
had  said,  "  Such  writing  we  Germans  cannot  yet  achieve."  But 
he  was  positive  and  confident  in  his  ideas  of  the  mission  and  the 
method  of  history.  While  he  was  making  his  investigations  for 
this  work,  he  read  the  historical  novels  of  Walter  Scott ;  and,  while 
he  admired  his  creative  genius,  he  took  serious  offense  at  his  mix- 
ture of  fiction  with  fact,  and  with  the  freedom  with  which  he 
treated  historical  persons  and  events.  For  himself  he  determined 
to  accept  for  the  material  of  history  nothing  but  authentic  fact. 
From  Niebuhr,  also,  he  differed  somewhat,  in  that  he  was  more 
reserved  in  making  history  minister  to  ethical  teaching.  Thus  he 
says  in  a  pithy  sentence :  "  It  has  been  counted  the  office  of  his- 
tory to  judge  the  past,  and  to  teach  the  present  for  the  good  of  the 
future ;  this  book  of  mine  ventures  upon  no  such  lofty  task ;  it 
will  only  narrate  the  past,  just  as  it  actually  occurred."  But 
Niebuhr's  critical  principles,  which  he  had  employed  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  Roman  annals,  were  now  applied,  and  more  consist- 
ently, to  modern  history,  and  indeed  made  available  and  essential 
to  all  historical  study.  And  thus  this  first  work  of  Von  Ranke's 
was  at  once  a  sure  prognostic  of  the  rise  of  a  great  historian  in 
Germany,  and  with  him  of  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  for  the 
scientific  development  of  history. 

Only  a  few  months  after  the  publication  of  this  work  its  author 
was  appointed  to  a  professorship  in  the  university  of  Berlin ;  so 
soon  had  the  Prussian  government  become  aware  of  his  abilities 
and  taken  steps  to  appropriate  them.  It  was  a  favorite  remark 
of  Johann  Schulze,  who  then  had  the  chief  influence  in  the  ap- 
pointment of  Berlin  professors :  "  Ranke  I  discovered,  and  this  star 
I  drew  into  the  orbit  of  our  University."  It  was  indeed  a  dis- 
covery, and  of  a  bright  particular  star  which  moved  in  that  Berlin 
orbit  for  a  period  of  sixty-one  years  with  unfading  lustre.  In 
1825,  March  13,  Ranke  entered  upon  his  duties  in  Berlin  as  pro- 
fessor extraordinary,  or,  as  we  should  say,  assistant  professor ;  in 
1833  he  was  made  professor  in  full.  His  career  as  professor  went 
on  for  forty  years,  till  1865,  when  at  the  age  of  seventy  he  was 
relieved  from  lecturing,  though  retaining  his  office  and  its  emolu- 
ments ;  but  his  career  as  historian  continued  without  cessation  or 
break  throughout  all  the  sixty-one  years,  even  to  the  last  week  of 
his  life.  The  transition  from  a  remote  provincial  town  to  the 
capital  of  Prussia,  to  the  university  of  Berlin,  and  so  to  the 
centre  of  German  literary  and  scientific  life,  was  a  change  of  im- 


THE   HISTORIAN   LEOPOLD   VON  RANKE.  575 

mense  moment  for  Ranke's  culture  and  productive  growth  and 
development.  At  that  time,  unlike  the  present,  politics  knew  no 
life  or  being  in  Berlin,  no  parliament  to  share  with  the  university 
intellectual  stir  and  interest ;  the  German  mind  was  actively  busied 
with  science,  letters,  art,  law,  philosophy;  and  seldom  has  any 
city  had  within  its  walls  so  many  choice  and  master  spirits  in  all 
these  pursuits  as  the  then  existing  Berlin.  Hegel  in  philosophy, 
Schleiermacher  in  theology,  Savigny  in  jurisprudence,  William 
von  Humboldt  in  politics  and  history,  Boeckh  in  philology,  Bopp 
in  the  science  of  language,  and  Karl  Ritter  in  modern  geography, 
—  it  was  with  these,  and  such  as  these,  then  lights  and  ornaments 
of  Berlin,  with  whom  he  came  into  near  intercourse  at  the  uni- 
versity. 

This  intellectual  atmosphere  in  which  he  here  lived  and  moved 
wrought  soon  its  genial  influence  upon  a  nature  so  susceptible  and 
comprehensive  as  Ranke's.  Especially  was  this  influence  exerted 
by  Savigny  and  William  von  Humboldt,  through  their  society  and 
their  writings,  and  also  by  Hegel  through  his  philosophy  of  his- 
tory. Thus  he  came  to  widen  and  deepen,  in  theory  and  in 
practice,  his  conception  of  the  mission  and  aims  of  history,  and 
also  to  win  flexibility  and  elegance  in  his  style  of  composition. 
Most  of  all,  as  some  of  his  pupils  have  observed  in  criticising  his 
next  following  works,  was  his  progress  manifest  in  his  proceeding, 
from  the  mastery  he  had  already  shown  in  seizing  and  setting  forth 
individual  events,  to  the  effort  of  discovering  and  representing 
the  connections  and  ideal  unity  of  things.  In  a  passage  written 
at  this  period  he  says :  "  History  must  not  be  content  to  exhibit 
the  outward  succession  of  events,  each  in  its  own  figure  and  color- 
ing, but  it  must  pierce  into  the  deepest  and  most  secret  move- 
ments of  human  life,  it  must  discover  what  in  every  age  the  race 
has  struggled  for  and  attained ;  and  this  not  by  the  way  of  phi- 
losophical speculation,  but  of  the  critical  study  of  facts."  But  it 
was  chiefly  the  literary  treasures  of  the  Royal  Library  that  made 
his  Berlin  life  so  rich  and  fruitful,  and  which,  indeed,  along  with 
kindred  treasures  in  other  libraries,  made  possible  for  him  the 
writing  of  his  historical  works.  Here  he  found  and  diligently  mas- 
tered the  manuscript  dispatches  of  Venetian  ambassadors,  which 
were  of  inestimable  value  for  the  history  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  the  period  of  his  chosen  historical  labors. 
In  those  centuries,  so  important  were  the  political  relations  of  Ven- 
ice, that  she  sent  ambassadors  to  all  the  courts  of  Europe,  who  for- 


576  THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD  VON  RANKE. 

warded  their  dispatches  to  the  home  government  every  fortnight. 
These  ambassadors  were  the  best  diplomatists  in  Europe,  and 
their  dispatches  contained  the  most  trustworthy  reports  of  politi- 
cal events.  Copies  of  these  dispatches  found  their  way  into  Ger- 
many, and  to  the  extent  of  forty-eight  folios  lay  on  the  shelves  of 
the  Berlin  Royal  Library.  The  first  result  of  Ranke's  mastery 
of  these  sources  of  history  was  given  to  the  world  in  1827  in  the 
first  volume  of  his  work  on  the  w  Princes  and  Peoples  of  Southern 
Europe  in  the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centuries."  This  work 
deals  with  Ottoman  and  Spanish  history,  portraying  the  rulers 
and  leading  statesmen  who  figured  in  them,  and  the  administra- 
tion of  their  governments.  But  it  was  a  work  which,  in  its  prepa- 
ration, only  lured  him  on  with  an  irresistible  attraction  to  plans 
of  yet  greater  works;  those  costly  manuscripts  of  the  Venetian 
ambassadors  awakened  the  desire  to  see  for  himself  the  archives 
of  Venice,  and  to  see  Venice  itself,  and  not  Venice  alone,  but 
Florence,  too,  and,  most  of  all,  Rome ;  to  see  and  know  Italy,  and 
not  only  for  its  collections  of  historic  materials,  but  for  all  else 
so  attractive  in  that  storied  land,  beautiful  no  less  in  art  and 
letters  than  its  sunny  skies.  Like  Goethe  and  many  another  poet 
and  scholar,  Ranke  also,  with  all  the  great  plans  struggling  in  his 
mind,  was  not  insensible  to  the  fine  refrain  of  Mignon's  song, 
"  Know'st  thou  the  land  ? — know'st  thou  it  well  ?  Oh,  there  !  't  is 
there  I  fain  with  thee  would  go."  Yes,  Ranke  too  yearned  to  see 
Italy,  and  he  saw  it  and  was  glad.  The  government  allowed  him  a 
leave  of  absence  for  three  years  to  pursue  his  researches  in  foreign 
and  chiefly  in  Italian  and  in  Roman  archives.  Rich  were  the  new 
acquisitions  made  by  Ranke  during  these  three  years ;  and  they 
were  as  various  as  are  the  domains  in  the  vast  realm  of  learned 
study  open  to  the  scholar  in  Rome  ;  but  of  all  the  Muses  whom  he 
cultivated  as  rulers  of  these  various  domains  it  was  the  Muse  of 
history  to  whom  he  was  most  devoted  and  with  the  amplest  re- 
turns. He  came  back  to  Berlin  in  1831,  with  ample  material  for 
his  work,  and  prepared  now  more  than  ever  before  to  write  history, 
not  from  printed  books,  but  from  original  documents  in  manuscript. 
He  now  settled  down  to  his  twofold  life-work,  that  of  an  academic 
teacher  and  of  an  historical  author.  Ranke  was  not  fitted  in 
person  or  in  delivery  to  be  an  attractive  and  popular  university 
lecturer  ;  for  some  time  his  lecture-room  was  thinly  attended  ;  but 
gradually  the  numbers  increased  as  it  became  known  how  original 
he  was  in  the  method  and  results  of  his  studies  and  in  his  talent 


THE   HISTORIAN   LEOPOLD   VON   RANKE.  577 

for  communicating  them  in  writing.  At  the  time  when  I  attended 
his  lectures  his  room  was  daily  crowded  with  attentive  and  inter- 
ested pupils  ;  but  the  attention  and  interest  seriously  suffered  from 
his  strange  eccentricities  of  person  and  manner.  You  looked  on 
with  a  curious  wonder  as  you  saw  his  small  and  not  well-propor- 
tioned figure,  his  large  massive  head  covered  with  black,  curling 
hair,  his  sharp  features,  and  his  great,  piercing  dark  blue  eyes. 
But  the  wonder  grew  as  he  spoke,  at  first  seeming  so  inwardly  full 
of  his  subject  that  the  utterance  was  slow  and  scarcely  articulate 
or  even  audible  ;  but  soon  and  suddenly,  loud  and  swift,  the  words 
at  sadly  uneven  pace  with  the  ideas,  the  sharp  eyes  with  an  up- 
ward gaze  towards  the  ceiling,  the  face  and  body  in  restless  move- 
ment, himself  starting  from  the  chair  and  then  back  again,  as  if 
he  were  possessed,  as  he  indeed  was,  with  a  frenzy  of  thought. 
He  had  certainly  the  inspiration  of  the  Sibyl,  but  her  contortions 
too,  and  these  were  a  serious  drawback  upon  the  reception  of  his 
lectures,  finished  though  they  were  in  preparation  to  the  last 
detail  both  in  conception  and  execution.  But  it  is  the  testimony 
of  his  pupils,  who  are  now  the  first  historians  in  Germany,  that 
Itanke's  best  educating  work  was  done  in  his  library,  in  his 
weekly  historical  exercises,  with  a  select  circle  of  those  students  who 
had  chosen  history  as  their  professional  specialty.  These  exer- 
cises, as  he  called  them,  and  which  he  instituted  in  imitation  of 
Beck's  philological  seminary,  of  which  he  was  a  member  in 
Leipsic,  proved  to  be  the  seminary  of  all  the  historical  semina- 
ries which  have  since  been  established  in  the  German  univer- 
sities with  such  signal  educating  results.  These  favored  students 
were  brought  into  immediate  relations  with  their  master,  and 
came  to  know  at  first  hand  his  extensive  knowledge,  his  many- 
sided  culture,  his  quickness  of  apprehension,  and  his  genial  pro- 
ductive criticism.  They  saw  him,  as  it  were,  in  his  own  workshop, 
and  watched  him  in  the  processes  of  his  own  work.  The  work 
there  with  the  master  himself  and  his  pupils  was  the  application 
of  the  right  method  to  historical  investigation  ;  and  this  was 
taught,  not  by  abstract  rules,  but  by  practical  exercises,  whether 
it  was  in  going  through  some  subject  he  was  investigating  himself, 
or  in  subjecting  their  essays  to  his  own  criticism.  The  themes  of 
such  essays  were  sometimes  set  by  himself,  sometimes  chosen  by 
them,  but  the  test  rigidly  applied  to  them  was  that  of  original  inde- 
pendent work,  and  any  violations  of  critical  laws  were  condemned 
with  merciless  strictness.  From  two  of  his  most  distinguished 


578  THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD   VON  RANKE. 

pupils,  Heinrich  von  Sybel  and  Wilhelra  von  Giesebrecht,  I  have 
gained  a  view,  which  I  will  here  present,  of  Ranke's  often  men- 
tioned method  of  historical  criticism,  and  also  of  historical  writ- 
ing. He  described  it  as  no  newly  discovered  secret ;  on  the  con- 
trary its  principle  is  an  old  one,  and,  as  soon  as  uttered,  self-evident. 
Only,  like  any  scientific  rule,  the  simpler,  it  is  the  more  various 
and  the  more  difficult  is  its  application.  Whoever  relates  an 
event,  he  says,  at  first  relates  not  the  event  itself,  but  the  impres- 
sion of  it  which  he  has  received.  In  this  relation  there  is,  as  all 
experience  shows,  a  subjective  element,  and  it  is  the  business  of 
historical  criticism,  by  the  removal  of  this  element,  to  get  and 
present  the  real  picture  of  the  matter  of  fact  related.  The  sub- 
jective element  is  increased  if  the  narrator  gets  his  knowledge 
from  several  successive  authorities  ;  and  so  the  critical  method 
strives  to  get  back  to  the  first  and  original  source  of  knowledge, 
and  to  draw  from  such  writings  as  are  themselves  part  and  parcel 
of  the  event  itself  ;  as,  for  instance,  if  it  is  a  battle,  to  get  the 
knowledge,  not  out  of  the  general's  dispatches,  but  farther  back, 
out  of  his  orders  before  and  during  the  battle.  All  this  earlier 
historians  have  known,  as  Thucydides  and  Tacitus,  but  Niebuhr 
and  Ranke  have  made  an  era  in  it,  because  in  their  applications 
they  have  raised  the  critical  rule  to  a  hitherto  unattained  mas- 
tery, and  Ranke  to  a  higher  grade  than  Niebuhr.  Still  further, 
it  is  needful  for  the  historian  to  reach  an  exhaustive  knowledge  of 
the  outward  position  and  of  the  inward  personality  of  the  writers 
who  are  his  authorities ;  and  such  knowledge  can  be  gained,  not 
by  the  logical  processes  of  science,  but  by  the  imaginative  pro- 
cesses requisite  in  creative  art.  So  it  is  the  dictum  of  Ranke  and 
of  Ranke's  historical  school  that  true  history  is  not  merely  a 
science,  it  is  also  an  art ;  no  great  historian  has  ever  lived  who 
was  only  a  man  of  critical  learning ;  genuine  historical  writing 
grows  out  of  the  general  union  of  the  methodical  investigation  of 
the  understanding  with  the  reproductive  energy  of  the  imagination. 
Hence  it  is  that  (as  Von  Sybel  tells  us)  Ranke  always  impressed 
it  upon  his  pupils,  in  criticising  their  papers,  that  the  critical 
method  of  research  was  not  the  end  of  history ;  THAT  with  no- 
thing else  would  only  lay  the  foundation  for  the  historic  structure  ; 
it  was  the  means  to  the  end,  to  the  artistic  representation  of  fact 
and  truth  in  man's  life  and  the  progress  of  the  world.  Von 
Sybel  adds  yet  another  feature  to  the  picture  of  Ranke's  manner 
as  a  teacher.  When  he  was  in  the  midst  of  his  family  circle, 


THE   HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD   VON   RANKE.  579 

rejoicing  in  his  children  and  his  grandchildren,  he  used  often  to 
say :  "  But  I  have  yet  another  family,  my  historical  family,  my 
pupils  and  my  pupils'  pupils."  Such  he  had  during  his  long  life 
even  to  the  third  generation,  eminent  students  and  teachers  and 
writers  of  history  all  over  Germany,  and  he  followed  their  suc- 
cesses in  life  with  a  fatherly  and  a  grandfatherly  affection.  "  In 
short,"  his  pupil  says,  "  in  short,  Ranke  was  by  God's  grace  a 
teacher  in  head  and  also  in  heart." 

During  all  these  active  labors  in  teaching,  Ranke  found  time 
for  his  great  literary  works.  The  chief  of  these  only  is  there  time 
to  mention,  with  brief  remarks  upon  their  character.  First  of  all 
he  completed  his  history  of  the  "  Princes  and  Peoples  of  South- 
ern Europe,"  by  the  work  in  three  volumes  which  he  published  in 
the  years  1834-1837,  entitled  "  The  History  of  the  Popes,  their 
Church  and  their  State,  in  the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centu- 
ries ;  "  which,  of  all  his  works,  is  perhaps  best  known  and  prized 
by  English  and  American  readers.  The  finished  art  with  which 
the  persons  and  events  were  portrayed,  individually  and  together, 
the  force  and  brilliancy  of  the  style,  wrought  upon  the  reader  with 
a  peculiar  charm ;  "  it  seemed,"  as  Giesebrecht  has  said  of  it,  "  as 
if  the  brightness  of  the  clear  Italian  sky  rested  upon  its  pages." 
When  he  completed  the  history  of  the  Popes  he  had  already  fin- 
ished the  collecting  and  sifting  of  his  materials  for  his  next  work, 
"  German  History  in  the  Period  of  the  Reformation ;  "  the  publica- 
tion of  it  followed,  in  five  volumes,  in  the  years  from  1839-1847. 
Here  it  was  his  purpose  not  to  write  the  history  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, but  the  history  of  Germany  in  the  reigns  of  Maximilian  I. 
and  Charles  V. ;  but  of  necessity  the  Reformation  came  into  the 
foreground  of  his  historical  picture,  and  was  portrayed  as  the 
greatest  event  of  all  German  history.  This  work  was  followed  by 
two,  closely  connected  with  it,  and,  in  the  judgment  of  the  author, 
necessary  to  its  completion.  These  were  his  "  French  History  in 
the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centuries,"  which  appeared  in  the 
years  1852—56,  in  four  volumes;  and  was  closely  followed  in  1859 
by  the  first  volume  of  his  English  history  of  the  same  period,  and 
this  by  successive  volumes,  till  the  seventh  appeared  in  1868. 
Other  works  he  wrote  during  this  period,  but  these  are  the  princi- 
pal ones,  on  which  chiefly  rests  his  fame.  By  the  general  consent 
of  critics,  they  illustrate  in  a  still  higher  degree  the  excellences  of 
his  earlier  books.  The  researches  on  which  they  rest  are  always 
the  same ;  exact,  thorough,  systematic,  and  with  these  the  artistic 


680  THE   HISTORIAN   LEOPOLD  VON   RANKE. 

form  of  presentation  keeps  even  pace  in  the  conception  and  the 
expression.  They  illustrate,  too,  what  Kanke  taught  and  practiced, 
the  object! ve  procedure  in  the  historical  writers ;  the  representa- 
tion of  the  truth  of  fact,  pure  and  simple,  without  pronouncing 
sentence,  either  of  praise  or  of  blame,  upon  the  events  and  the  per- 
sons. Yet  sometimes  he  must  needs  yield  to  the  dictate  of  nature, 
and  mingle  with  the  narrative  expressions  of  sympathy,  either  of 
admiration  or  of  abhorrence ;  and  this,  too,  without  impairing  the 
judicial  impartiality  of  the  historian.  His  pupil  Von  Sybel  gives 
us  a  fine  criticism  on  this  point.  "When  I  read,"  he  says, 
"  Ranke's  '  Princes  and  Peoples  of  Southern  Europe,'  or  his  '  His- 
tory of  the  Popes,'  I  experience  a  delight  like  that  which  one  has 
in  going  through  a  gallery  of  fine  pictures  and  statues.  Quite 
otherwise  is  it  with  me  in  reading  his  '  German  History  in  the 
Time  of  the  Reformation.'  This  work  is  thoroughly  imbued  with 
the  inspiration  of  the  German  patriot  for  the  greatest  act  of  the 
German  mind ;  we  see  how  this  history  was  not  only  thought,  but 
lived  through,  in  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  writer,  and  so  it  has  a 
warm  tone,  and  a  liveliness  and  grandeur,  reached  nowhere  else  in 
the  author's  works."  Till  he  was  upwards  of  seventy  years  old, 
Ranke  had  enjoyed  uninterrupted  soundness  of  health.  But  in 
1867,  when  on  a  journey  to  Munich,  he  incurred,  by  taking  cold, 
a  painful  malady,  which  became  chronic,  and  at  intervals  very 
serious  in  its  effects.  At  that  time  he  gave  up  his  university  lec- 
tures ;  he  also  withdrew  from  society,  where  he  had  always  been 
sought  after,  the  favorite  of  kings,  princes,  and  scholars.  His 
home  was  now  much  changed,  as  his  wife  had  died  and  his  chil- 
dren had  grown  up  and  left  the  paternal  roof.  But  with  these 
changes,  his  desire  for  work,  his  joy  in  creative  thinking  and  writ- 
ing, was  unchanged  and  the  same.  He  then  began  a  new  edition 
of  his  writings,  with  important  revisions  and  improvements.  New 
works  also  he  published,  some  biographical,  as  "  Wallenstein  "  and 
"  Savonarola,"  "  Frederic  William  IV."  and  "  Hardenberg,"  oth- 
ers historical,  "  The  Origin  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,"  "  Origin 
of  the  Revolutionary  Wars  in  1791,  1792,"  and  the  "  History  of 
Austria  and  Prussia  between  the  Peace  of  Aix  la  Chapelle  and 
Hubertsburg."  In  such  labors  his  life  went  on  till  1880,  when  he 
was  eighty-five  years  old.  His  published  works  now  numbered 
forty-eight  volumes  octavo.  He  had  written,  as  Lord  Acton  has 
declared,  "  a  larger  number  of  excellent  books  than  any  man  that 
ever  lived  ; "  and  it  was  the  testimony  of  a  German  writer,  quoted 


THE   HISTORIAN   LEOPOLD   VON  RANKE.  581 

by  Lord  Acton,  that  "  he  alone  among  prose  writers  had  furnished 
a  masterpiece  to  every  country."  By  critics  of  all  countries  he 
was  adjudged  the  greatest  of  living  historians.  The  influence  of 
his  writings  pervaded  the  whole  lettered  world,  and  his  pupils  and. 
pupils'  pupils  were  the  masters  in  history  in  Germany  as  teachers 
and  as  writers.  But  at  the  age  of  eighty-five,  when,  after  the 
achievement  of  such  labors  and  such  fame,  his  literary  career  was 
supposed  to  be  ended,  it  was  disco'vered,  to  universal  amazement, 
that  he  had  planned  and  was  writing  a  more  comprehensive  work 
than  any  he  had  written  —  a  universal  history.  It  seemed  to  him 
necessary  to  bring  his  historical  studies  to  a  well-rounded  comple- 
tion in  a  great  work,  which  should  present  as  on  one  grand  canvas 
the  entire  course  and  progress  of  human  development  in  historic 
times.  Some  new  researches  he  was  obliged  to  make  for  some 
parts  of  this  vast  undertaking,  but  for  the  most  part  he  relied 
upon  material  already  in  possession.  He  had  once  given  a  course 
of  lectures  on  universal  history  to  King  Maximilian  of  Bavaria, 
and  this  was  taken  as  an  outline  of  his  new  work.  In  the  treat- 
ment of  ancient  history,  it  was  a  great  joy  to  him  to  go  back  to 
the  results  of  his  classical  studies  of  early  years,  and  work  over 
the  materials  gathered  at  Schulpforta  and  at  Frankfort,  in  the 
shape  of  notes  and  observations  and  essays  and  abstracts,  so  that 
while  he  was  living  through  the  history  of  the  world  he  was  living 
through  again  his  own  life.  As  another  has  said  of  him,  "  Classi- 
cal culture  was  the  fountain-head  of  Ranke's  historical  learning, 
and  it  now  came  into  full  play."  The  first  volume  of  this  work 
appeared  in  1881 ;  this  was  followed  by  a  new  volume  every  year ; 
he  lived  to  publish,  in  1886,  the  sixth  volume ;  also  to  write  seven 
chapters  of  the  seventh,  but  that  was  published  from  his  notes 
after  his  death,  and  it  has  since  been  followed  by  the  eighth  and 
ninth,  also  written  and  published  by  his  secretaries  from  his 
notes. 

During  these  last  years  Ranke  was  honored  and  revered  in 
Germany  as  no  one  had  been  since  Alexander  von  Humboldt. 
The  German  sovereigns  vied  with  one  another  in  bestowing  upon 
him  titles  of  honor.  In  Prussia  he  had  been  raised  to  the  rank 
of  nobility,  and  also  made  chancellor  of  the  Prussian  Order  pour 
le  merite.  All  the  academies  of  letters  and  sciences  in  Europe 
sent  him  diplomas.  All  academic  Berlin  celebrated  in  1867  with 
enthusiasm  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  doctor's  degree,  and  in 
1882  also  the  semi-centennial  of  his  entrance  into  the  Academy  of 


582  THE   HISTORIAN   LEOPOLD  VON   RANKE. 

• 

Sciences.  So,  too,  the  day  which  in  1885  marked  the  sixtieth 
anniversary  of  his  professorship  was  made  a  municipal  as  well  as 
academic  holiday,  and  the  municipality  presented  him  with  the 
honorary  freedom  of  the  city.  But  the  culminating  jubilee-day 
of  his  long  life,  the  most  impressive,  too,  of  all  the  literary  occa- 
sions Berlin  has  known,  was  that  which  commemorated  the  nine- 
tieth anniversary  of  his  birth.  In  order  to  spare  him  a  con-, 
tinuous  exertion  and  excitement  during  the  day,  it  was  quietly 
agreed  some  time  beforehand  among  his  numerous  friends  that 
not  separately  but  together  and  at  the  same  hour  they  would  all 
gather  at  his  house  and  bring  their  congratulations  and  good 
wishes.  A  distinguished  company  assembled  at  the  appointed 
hour,  representing  the  university  of  Berlin  and  the  Academy  of 
Sciences,  and  the  universities  of  Leipsic,  Jena,  Gbttingen,  and 
Strassburg,  and  warmly  greeted  the  aged  historian,  who  gener- 
ously welcomed  them  to  his  home  and  his  family,  his  children 
and  grandchildren  being  gathered  around  him.  Then  followed 
from  gentlemen  speaking  in  behalf  of  these  learned  bodies  a 
series  of  congratulatory  addresses,  the  most  notable  of  which  were 
those  of  Professor  Mommsen  and  Georg  Waitz  and  Heinrich  von 
Sybel.  But  the  great  feature  of  the  occasion  was  Ranke's  own 
address  in  reply,  in  which  he  reviewed  the  stages  of  his  studies 
and  labors,  and  the  signal  political  movements  of  his  life,  and 
their  connection  with  German  historical  writings.  Numerous 
were  also  the  written  communications  from  all  parts  of  the  world 
which  reached  the  historian  on  this  memorable  day.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  read  among  these  a  letter  from  George  Bancroft,  con- 
veying the  congratulations  of  the  American  Historical  Associa- 
tion, and  announcing  the  election  of  Ranke  as  the  only  honorary 
member  of  the  association,  which  Mr.  Bancroft  characterizes  as 
"a  special  homage  to  Ranke  as  the  greatest  living  historian." 
Mr.  Bancroft,  himself  at  that  time  over  eighty  years  of  age,  signs 
himself,  "  Your  very  affectionate  and  devoted  scholar  and  friend." 
At  the  end  of  Ranke's  address  he  expressed  the  ardent  wish  and 
hope  that  his  life  might  be  spared  to  complete  his  Universal  His- 
tory. He  little  knew  how  near  was  the  end  of  his  life.  He 
labored  on  with  well-nigh  preternatural  exertion,  giving  ten  hours 
a  day  to  his  work,  dictating  to  one  of  his  two  secretaries  in  the 
morning  and  to  the  other  in  the  evening.  So  it  went  on  day  after 
after  day  with  no  apparent  loss  of  mental  vigor,  until  the  13th 
of  May,  when  on  awaking  he  discovered  that  effort  either  of  body 


THE  HISTORIAN  LEOPOLD   VON  RANKE.  583 

or  of  mind  was  no  longer  possible.  His  long  life-work  was  ended. 
The  remaining  days  were  only  a  struggle  with  death.  Mostly  he 
lay  unconscious ;  in  lucid  moments  he  took  leave  of  his  children 
and  friends,  listened  gladly  to  readings  from  the  Bible,  and 
calmly  awaited  the  inevitable  hour.  He  died  on  the  23d  of  May, 
1886.  In  his  own  life  he  lived  long ;  in  his  works  he  has  lived 
for  all  times.  There  was  in  him  a  rare  union  of  literary  with 
scientific  gifts,  the  capacity  of  large  and  exact  research,  with  the 
power  to  communicate  its  results  with  artistic  skill,  a  master  alike 
in  the  art  of  observing  sharply  the  individual  and  the  particular, 
and  in  weaving  them  into  a  harmonious  whole.  Nor  may  I  close 
without  speaking  of  his  character  as  described  by  those  who  knew 
him  best.  The  minister  who  spoke  the  word  over  his  open  grave 
characterized  him  as  a  man  of  piety  {Piet'dt),  taking  that  German 
word  in  its  large  German  sense,  as  drawn  from  the  Latin  sense  of 
the  original  word,  the  sense  of  dutiful  affection  for  all  to  whom 
one  may  sustain  human  relations ;  such  piety  he  had  even  to  ad- 
vanced age  for  his  revered  and  loved  parents ;  piety  for  the  schools 
that  nurtured  and  trained  him ;  piety,  too,  for  that  Thiiringen 
soil  on  which  had  stood  his  cradle.  Very  touching  are  the  tones 
of  this  pious  love  for  his  birthplace  and  early  home  as  in  the  last 
pages  of  the  last  volume  of  his  World-history  he  has  occasion  to 
describe  them  in  connection  with  his  narrative  of  the  Saxon  em- 
perors Henry  I.  and  Otto  I.  These  kings  had  lived  there,  and 
they  died  there,  and  their  names  and  fortunes,  with  the  site  of 
their  palaces  and  grounds,  had  been  familiar  to  him  in  his  boy- 
hood, and  it  is  with  a  singular  interest  that  we  find  him  at  the  end 
of  his  long  life  coming  back  as  a  writer  to  its  very  beginnings,  his 
last  words,  his  dying  swan-song,  uttered  over  his  own  cradle.  But 
also  for  the  German  sovereigns  of  his  own  days  as  well  as  of  those 
olden  times  had  he  ever  in  him  this  dutiful  sense,  this  pious  loy- 
alty :  for  King  Frederic  William  IV.  and  for  his  brother  the 
Emperor  and  King  William  L,  both  of  whom  were  in  turn  proud 
of  him  not  only  as  a  subject  but  also  as  a  countryman  and  friend. 
For  his  country,  too,  whose  history  he  wrote,  he  cherished  the 
same  dutiful  spirit  as  a  patriot.  But  piety  was  his  also  in  its 
highest  sense,  —  piety  towards  God.  "  This,"  as  was  said  at  his 
grave,  "was  the  secret  of  his  strength  and  his  peace.  He  believed 
in  Christ  as  his  Lord  and  Saviour."  His  son  said  of  him  :  "  My 
father  was  a  Christian  not  in  name  only,  but  in  deed  and  in 
truth.  In  his  works  the  religious  thought  was  the  decisive  one 


584  TIIK   HISTORIAN   LEOPOLD   VON   RANKR. 

for  the  development  of  human  history.  In  his  personal  and  his 
family  life  religion  was  the  ruling  and  controlling  influence." 
Such  he  was  in  the  judgment  of  his  pastor  and  of  his  son.  Such 
was  his  character.  Is  there  not  as  much  to  remember  and  to 
prize  in  such  a  man^  as  even  in  such  a  historian  ? 


APPENDIX. 


COLLEGE  INCIDENTS  AND  ANECDOTES. 

A   HAZING   THAT    MIGHT    HAVE    HAPPENED. 

AN  incident  of  Professor  Lincoln's  Freshman  year  at  Brown,  and 
which  is  not  mentioned  in  his  diary,  is  thus  told  by  his  friend,  Mr.  E. 
H.  Hazard :  — 

I  first  met  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  fall  term  of  Brown  University,  in 
1832.  I  then  entered  on  my  Junior  and  he  on  his  Freshman  year.  In 
a  few  evenings  commenced  that  proceeding  which  has  always  been  a 
disgrace  to  every  college  in  the  land.  I  mean  the  hazing  of  Freshmen. 
The  band  of  hazers  on  that  evening  was  led  by  the  late  Hon.  Nathan  F. 
Dixon,  then  a  Senior.  He  entered  the  rooms  first  and  I  last,  and  locked 
the  door  behind  us.  The  first  student  we  assailed  roomed  on  the  lower 
floor  of  the  north  division  of  Hope  College.  He  was  smart  enough  to  get 
away  from  us,  and  never  stopped  running,  I  was  told,  until  he  reached 
the  Friends'  School.  John  Lincoln's  room  was  on  the  second  floor  of 
University  Hall,  north  division.  When  we  were  inside  and  I  had  locked 
the  door,  I  was  struck  with  the  nice  manner  in  which  his  apartments 
were  furnished.  He  came  np  to  me  and  gave  me  such  a  cordial  greeting 
as  took  all  the  nonsense  and  rashness  out  of  me.  I  stepped  up  to  Mr. 
Dixon  and  said,  "  No  hazing  in  this  room.  He  is  too  much  of  a  gentle- 
man." After  a  few  jokes,  we  bade  him  good-night.  As  my  acquaintance 
began,  so  it  continued  to  the  day  of  his  death. 

THE    REBELLION    AGAINST    "  PARTS." 

The  Class  of  1835  became  quite  famous  in  the  history  of  Brown  Uni- 
versity as  "  The  Rebel  Class."  This  "  rebellion  "  was  not  against  com- 
pulsory attendance  on  college  prayers  nor  against  recitations  on  New 
Year's  Day,  which  have  been  grievances  in  more  modern  and  degenerate 
days.  On  the  contrary,  this  class,  in  their  Senior  year,  rebelled  against 
what  they  were  pleased  to  consider  the  unholy  and  unchristian  system  of 
"  parts  "  adopted  by  the  Faculty.  By  this  system  of  "  parts  "  each  stu- 
dent's standing  was  scrupulously  kept  and  made  known.  Undergraduate 
conscience  was  very  rigid  in  those  days,  and  the  system  of  "  parts  "  was 
too  flagrant  an  appeal  to  worldly  ambition  and  too  unworthy  an  incen- 


586  APPENDIX. 

tive  to  study  to  be  borne.  Therefore  the  Class  of  1835  stranded  on  this 
rock  of  high  principle,  and,  with  but  three  exceptions,  left  without  their 
degrees.  Of  course  the  Class  of  1836  could  not  be  content  with  conscien- 
tious principles  less  lofty  than  those  of  their  predecessors.  In  some  in- 
stances this  extra  moral  sensitiveness  took  the  shape  of  neglect  of  study 
by  way  of  public  notice  to  all  concerned  that  the  individual  declined  to 
study  for  a  "  part."  Class  meetings  were  held  on  the  "  part "  question, 
and  a  petition  to  the  Corporation  was  drawn  up  requesting  them  to  abol- 
ish the  objectionable  usage.  This  petition  was,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
class,  eminently  respectful  as  to  manner  and  quite  unanswerable  as  to 
matter.  The  class  as  a  whole  signed  it,  and  Wm.  L.  Brown  and  John 
L.  Lincoln,  with  beating  hearts,  carried  it  to  the  house  of  Dr.  Crocker, 
who  was  at  that  time  the  Secretary  of  the  Corporation.  As  he  was  not 
at  home,  the  document  was  handed  to  the  domestic  who  came  to  the 
door,  and  the  deed  was  done.  The  Corporation  met  as  usual,  and  gave 
no  sign  that  the  petition  had  ruffled  their  composure.  The  Commence- 
ment of  1835  came  and  passed  without  a  word  of  reply ;  the  next  term 
ended,  and  no  one  presumed  to  ask  Dr.  Wayland  the  cause  of  his  silence. 
This  wholesome  neglect  cured  the  excitement,  and  matters  went  on  as  if 
there  had  never  been  such  a  thing  as  a  petition  until  the  college  course 
was  completed ;  then  Dr.  Wayland,  with  the  grim  humor  characteristic 
of  him,  showed  his  appreciation  of  the  petition  by  summoning  Mr.  Wm. 
L.  Brown,  who  had  been  most  prominent  in  the  affair,  and  intrusting  to 
his  hands  the  assignment  of  "parts"  for  the  class. 

THE    YOUTHFUL    TUTOR. 

There  is  a  legend  of  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  Professor  Lincoln's 
service  as  tutor  at  Brown,  which  will  illustrate  his  extremely  youthful 
appearance  at  the  time.  It  is  said  that  two  about-to-be  Freshmen,  meet- 
ing him  on  the  Campus  with  his  books,  naturally  mistook  him  for  a  fellow 
classmate.  On  asking  some  questions  as  to  how  to  dodge  the  new  tutor 
and  avoid  excessive  study,  they  were  courteously  informed  that  they  were 
talking  to  the  new  tutor,  who  hoped  they  would  be  prepared.  Quite  in- 
credulous, yet  considering  him  possibly  old  enough  to  be  a  mischievous 
Sophomore,  they  are  said  to  have  asserted,  in  language  more  forcible 
than  elegant,  the  impossibility  of  hoaxing  them.  In  some  versions  of 
this  story  their  verbiage  is  represented  as  being  unduly  ornamented, 
probably  for  the  sake  of  greater  vividness  of  contrast  in  depicting  the 
chagrin  of  the  young  men  when  in  the  recitation-room  they  again  met 
the  new  tutor. 

THE    OLD    COMMONS    HALL. 

In  Professor  Lincoln's  student  days  and  for  some  time  afterward  one  of 
the  ground  floor  rooms  of  the  "  Old  College  "  or  University  Hall  was  used 


APPENDIX.  587 

for  the  Chapel,  and  another  room  for  the  "  College  Commons."  Accord- 
ing to  the  recollection  of  one  of  Professor  Lincoln's  classmates,  "  Com- 
mons Hall "  was  quite  a  large  room,  with  some  six  or  eight  long  tables 
with  plain  benches,  and  plain  but  abundant  and  wholesome  fare.  The 
crockery  was  decidedly  unornamental,  and  the  silver  knives  and  forks 
conspicuous  by  absence.  The  students  were  expected  to  be  somewhat 
fond  of  boiled  rice.  There  was  no  precise  allotment  of  seats,  but  each 
one  generally  had  his  own  place.  Conversation  was  free,  and  one  joke 
has  been  handed  down  as  to  the  coffee :  that  the  coffee-pot  was  slow  of 
delivery  because  the  coffee  was  too  weak  to  run.  No  great  formality  of 
manners  was  required,  but  when  mischievous  students  sought  recreation 
in  throwing  crackers  at  less  giddy  and  more  hungry  comrades,  the  stern 
authority  of  steward  Elliott  was  felt,  and  the  person  suspected,  whether 
guilty  or  innocent,  had  peremptory  leave  to  withdraw.  Occasionally 
some  one  who  had,  or  thought  he  had,  the  gift  of  music,  would  stand  up, 
rap  on  the  table  with  the  handle  of  his  dining  fork  to  attract  attention, 
and  sound  out  two  or  three  notes  of  the  gamut,  in  which  quite  a  number 
would  immediately  unite  ;  but  the  promptness  with  which  this  melody 
would  be  quieted  demonstrated  "  Pluto's  "  eternal  vigilance  and  lack  of 
musical  appreciation.  At  this  time  chapel  prayers  and  the  first  recita- 
tion came  before  the  commons  breakfast. 

ANECDOTES. 

In  this  connection  Professor  Lincoln  used  to  tell  of  a  somewhat  fast 
student  who  remonstrated  against  the  change  of  time  of  the  college 
prayers  to  eight  o'clock,  giving  as  his  reason  that  he  did  not  mind  sitting 
up  till  six,  but  eight  o'clock  compelled  him  to  keep  too  late  hours.  He 
also  told  an  anecdote  of  a  student  of  High  Church  tendencies,  who  was 
accustomed  to  study  in  chapel  during  prayer  time,  and  on  being  taken  to 
task  for  irreverence,  furnished  the  more  or  less  satisfactory  excuse  that 
it  could  not  properly  be  considered  irreverence  because  the  building  had 
never  been  regularly  consecrated. 

Another  incident  which  he  was  fond  of  relating  occurred  as  nearly  as 
can  be  ascertained  in  his  Freshman  year.  Some  Sophomores  locked  the 
Freshman  class  and  their  tutor  into  the  recitation-room  and  proceeded  to 
squirt  quantities  of  aqua  pura  through  the  keyhole  with  a  syringe.  The 
tutor  was  a  man  of  utmost  nicety  of  dress  as  well  as  of  manners  and 
language,  and  was  somewhat  discomfited  at  the  consequences  of  an  un- 
successful attempt  on  his  part  to  open  the  door.  At  this  juncture  a  very 
stalwart  Freshman  from  some  rural  district  at  once  cheered  and  horrified 
the  tutor  by  remarking,  "  Mister  Tutor,  if  yew  will  permit  me,  sir,  I  will 
yank  that  door  open."  The  door  was  "yanked,"  the  disturbers  fled, 
and  the  inelegance  of  the  expression  was  condoned  by  the  thoroughness 
of  execution. 


APPENDIX. 

Professor  Lincoln  remembered  an  impromptu  prank  of  two  of  his 
classmates,  who  had  received  from  home  by  stage-coach  a  large  quantity 
of  "  slip,"  or  curdled  milk,  intended  to  eke  out  the  college  fare.  This 
on  arrival  was  found  to  be  completely  spoiled  by  the  long,  rough  jour- 
ney, and  was  thereupon  deposited  all  over  the  stairs  and  entries.  This 
practical  pun  on  the  name  of  the  delicacy  was  sufficiently  enjoyed  by 
the  victims.  Professor  Lincoln's  only  comment  on  this  nonsense  was, 
"  Those  silly  fellows !  " 

Another  exploit  which  he  recalled  was  perpetrated  by  a  member  of  the 
Class  of  1834  upon  one  of  the  professors  who  was  one  of  the  kindest, 
least  suspicious  men  that  ever  lived.  The  student  by  way  of  bravado 
rode  down  the  college  stairs  on  the  professor's  back,  and  then  escaped 
the  consequences  by  profuse  expressions  of  regret  for  the  unfortunate 
mistake.  Tradition  has  improved  this  event  by  adding  that  on  a  wager 
the  same  student  took  another  ride  and  escaped  again  in  the  same  man- 
ner, but  upon  condition  that  no  more  mistakes  should  occur.  Professor 
Lincoln  could  appreciate  the  ludicrous  side  of  this  piece  of  impudence, 
but  he  considered  it  a  mean  performance. 

MOCK   PROGRAMMES. 

In  speaking  of  the  "  mock  programmes  "  which  twenty  or  thirty  years 
ago  were  a  prominent  feature  of  the  old  time  "  Junior  Exhibitions," 
Professor  Lincoln  was  often  wont  to  remark,  that  they  were  the  more 
"  inexcusable  "  because  of  their  lack  of  wit  and  their  abundance  of  scur- 
rility. He  was  always  severe  against  vulgarity,  and  often  in  his  old  age 
repeated  with  appreciation  the  repartee  attributed  to  General  Grant,  who, 
when  some  officer,  beginning  an  indelicate  story,  said,  "  I  believe  there 
are  no  ladies  here,"  was  promptly  silenced  by  the  answer,  "  No,  sir,  only 
gentlemen" 

RELIGION   NOT   GOODYNESS. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  fond  of  informal  talks  with  his  students  outside 
of  the  recitation-room  and  upon  practical  topics  of  personal  interest.  In 
such  a  conversation  with  some  members  of  the  Class  of  1870  the  discus- 
sion touched  on  the  somewhat  popular  misconception  that  religion  in  a 
college  student  presupposes  a  certain  goody-goody  disposition.  Profes- 
sor Lincoln  had  no  sympathy  with  such  a  notion,  and  said  that  on  the 
contrary  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  Lord  had  the  most  use  for  men  that 
had  the  most  devil  in  them,  so  that  the  devil  is  put  in  subjection  and 
kept  under. 

IN   THE    CLASS-ROOM. 

In  the  recitation -room  it  occasionally  happened  that  some  student, 
anxious  to  be  extremely  correct,  would  give  too  literal  a  translation, 


APPENDIX.  589 

following  exactly  the  Latin  idiom  and  order  of  words.  In  such  a  case 
Professor  Lincoln  would  put  into  practice  the  words  of  Horace  — 

"  Nee  verbiim  verbo  curabis  reddere  fidus 
Interpres  "  - 

and  the  student  would  be  requested  to  make  his  translations  into  the 
English  language. 

Students  who  used  "  ponies  "  were  never  safe.  The  Professor  was  well 
posted  in  the  different  texts  and  translations,  and  knew  when  the  text 
followed  by  the  "pony"  differed  from  the  edition  used  by  the  class. 
Without  any  change  of  manner  or  voice  he  would  ask  what  was  the 
Latin  word  which  the  student  had  rendered  according  to  "  pony ;  "  or 
perhaps  he  would  ask  some  question  relating  to  the  correct  Latin  word 
translated  in  the  "  pony,"  which  of  course  was  nowhere  to  be  found  in 
the  text  used  in  the  class.  When  the  incautious  student  and  the  rest  of 
the  class  as  well  had  searched  unsuccessfully  for  the  word,  the  room 
would  be  pervaded  by  a  sense  that  something  or  other  had  gone  wrong. 

In  the  old  days  of  the  English  pronunciation  some  students  had  a  pref- 
erence for  the  Continental  method,  and  when  the  attempt  to  pronounce 
according  to  their  preference  ended  in  a  sort  of  composite  ad  libitum 
reading,  they  were  glad  to  get  off  with  the  mild  rebuke  implied  in  the 
query  as  to  which  kind  of  pronunciation,  on  the  whole,  they  preferred. 

Perhaps  the  most  exasperating  draft  on  his  fund  of  patience  was  when 
some  blundering  student,  by  a  most  unintentional  anticipation  of  the 
modern  pronunciation,  would  persist  in  murdering  the  name  of  that  dis- 
tinguished friend  of  learning,  and  the  patron  of  the  poet  Horace,  Maece- 
nas. "  M?/cenas  !  Mycenas  !  "  he  would  repeat,  "  why  do  you  call  him 
that  ?  spell  it  for  yourself  !  " 

There  was  a  tradition  in  college  concerning  "  Lincoln's  Livy,"  which 
was  more  than  half  believed,  that  he  himself  and  not  Livy  was  the  au- 
thor of  the  Latin  preface.  Professor  Lincoln  was  much  amused  when 
on  the  class-day  of  18 —  one  of  the  speakers  at  the  tree,  pursuing  the 
time-honored  practice  of  raking  the  faculty,  accused  him  of  writing  Livy's 
preface,  and  remonstrated  with  him  for  inflicting  on  overworked  students 
a  bit  of  Latin  notoriously  tougher  than  all  the  rest  of  the  book. 

A    LATIN   EPISTLE. 

But  although  he  did  not  write  Livy's  preface,  a  Latin  epistle  has  been 
preserved,  written  by  him  in  reply  to  a  request  made  in  the  same  lan- 
guage by  the  Class  of  1864  for  a  change  in  the  hour  of  recitation  to  en- 
able them  to  see  a  base-ball  match  between  Harvard  and  Brown.  This 
letter  reads  as  follows  :  — 
Domino  Johanni  Tetlow  et  Aliis. 

Discipuli  et  commilitones  carissimi,  Vestras  litteras  recepi  quibus  ut 
ludo  Sophomorico  adsitis,  recitationem  Latinam  die  Mercurii  hora  post 


590  APPENDIX. 

preces  academicas  prima  habitant  velitis.  Cui  vestrae  voluntati  libenter 
obsequerer,  si  ilia  hora  vacuus  esseni.  Quoniam  eo  tempore  apud  meam 
scholain  semper  occupatus  sum,  vos  crastino  die  nona  hora  (vel  Anglice) 
tertia  post  meridiem  hora,  conveniam. 

Valete  J.  L.  LINCOLN. 

Scribebam  ix  Kal.  Jul.  MDCCCLXIII. 

FROM  "BROWN  UNIVERSITY  IN  THE  'FIFTIES," 
Written  for  the  "  Brunonian,"  by  Rev.  Daniel  Goodwin,  of  the  Class  of  1857. 

What  most  impressed  us  about  the  lately  departed  and  dearly  beloved 
Professor  of  the  Latin  Language  and  Literature  was  his  sheer  earnest- 
ness. He  worked  himself,  and  he  expected  work.  There  was  no  non- 
sense about  him.  None  others  talked  so  little  in  the  class-room,  and 
none  others  secured  quite  such  perfect  order  and  decorum.  We  all  had 
an  utter  belief  in  the  absolute  sincerity  of  the  man.  In  his  presence  the 
most  volatile  became  temporarily  sedate.  Work  began  at  the  first  mo- 
ment of  the  recitation  hour  and  lasted  to  the  closing  one.  But  nobody 
fancied  that  Professor  Lincoln,  with  all  his  gravity,  was  devoid  of  a 
sense  of  humor. 

"  M.  Tull.  Cicero,"  began  a  student  to  translate,  one  day-  "  M.  Tull. ! 
M.  Tull.  !  "  exclaimed  the  Professor.  "  Why  not  give  the  gentleman  the 
whole  of  his  name  ?  "  and,  without  moving  a  muscle  of  his  face,  demanded, 
"  How  should  /  like  to  be  called  Line.  ?  "  This  was  a  little  too  much  for 
even  the  hushed  atmosphere  of  the  Latin  room,  and  brought  down  the 
house.  Nine  out  of  ten  of  the  boys  never  called  him  anything  else  but 
Line.,  and  he  knew  it,  too,  and  no  doubt  did  not  dislike  it,  for  it  was  a 
term  of  positive  endearment.  Woe,  however,  to  the  student  who  habit- 
ually neglected  his  work.  He  might  expect  no  mercy.  In  a  few  clearly 
cut  sentences  he  would  be  simply  annihilated. 

One  day  a  youth,  who  loved  his  pony  "  not  wisely,  but  too  well,"  was 
construing  a  passage.  Perhaps  it  was  the  line  of  the  .5£neid,  Demissum 
lapsi  per  funem,  Acamasque,  Thoasque.  At  first  he  proceeded  glibly 
enough,  —  "  Having  slid  down  by  the  lowered  rope,"  —  then  he  began  to 
stumble,  and  appealed  piteously  to  the  Professor :  "  Please,  sir,  I  have 
forgotten  what  funem  means."  In  the  condition  in  which  the  poor  fel- 
low soon  found  himself,  after  receiving  an  expression  of  the  Professor's 
mind,  "  Acamas,"  or  "  Thoas,"  or  even  "  dirus  Ulixes,"  had  they  shared 
it,  might  well  have  wished  themselves  back  in  the  "  hollow  horse."  He 
might  aptly  have  been  said  to  be  "  at  the  end  of  his  rope." 

"  Too  soon  called "  could  seldom  have  been  written  so  fitly  as  con- 
cerning this  most  lovable  and  best  of  men.  Of  no  one  of  the  old  Fac- 
ulty will  the  memory  be  kept  longer  green. 


APPENDIX.  591 


COLLEGE    AND    SEMINABY   ESSAYS. 

Quite  a  number  of  essays  are  preserved  written  by  Professor  Lincoln 
when  a  student  in  Brown  University.  The  titles  of  some  of  these  are  as 
follows  :  — 

Fancy  Fairs.     1834. 

Juvenal.     1834. 

Education  of  the  Senses.     1834. 

Influence  of  a  Devotional  Spirit  upon  Taste.     1835. 

Importance  of  Acquaintance  with  Republican  Institutions.     1835. 

Witchcraft.     1835. 

On  Declamatory  Exercises  (designed  for  the  meridian  of  Brown  Uni- 
versity). 1835. 

Is  it  Right  to  Administer  an  Oath  ?     1835. 

The  Slow  Progress  of  American  Literature.     1835. 

An  Amiable  Woman.     1835. 

Poetical  Writings  of  Thomas  Moore.     1835. 

Estimate  of  Intellectual  Character.      1835. 

Analyses  of  Arguments.     1835. 

Civil  Insubordination  (for  Senior  Exhibition).     1835. 

Has  either  House  of  Congress  a  Right  to  Expunge  from  its  Journal 
any  of  its  Proceedings  ?  A  Political  Squib.  1836. 

Economical  Effects  of  the  Invention  of  the  Mariner's  Compass.     1836. 

The  Result  of  the  Use  of  Natural  Agents  upon  the  Lower  Classes  of 
Society.  1836. 

The  Means  by  which  a  Government  may  Promote  Production.     1836. 

The  Ultimate  Success  of  Great  Minds.  (Commencement  Oration.) 
1836. 

There  are  also  in  existence  among  his  papers  three  written  at  Colum- 
bian College  in  1837,  for  the  "Evangelical  Society,"  on  — 

Missions  in  China. 

The  Connection  between  Colleges  and  Missions. 

The  Mutual  Influences  of  Christians. 

Also,  Essays  and  Sermons  written  at  Newton  in  1839,  among  which 
are,  — 

On  Prayer  in  Colleges. 

The  Sacred  Writers  Inspired. 

Man  before  the  Fall. 

God  and  his  Attributes. 

The  Omnipresence  of  God. 

No  Passions  in  God. 

The  Existence  and  Agency  of  Satan  as  an  Evil  Spirit. 

The  Moral  Influence  of  Charitable  Fairs. 

The  Relation  of  Ethics  to  Theology. 

Indecision  in  Religion. 


592  APPENDIX. 


LATER    WRITINGS. 

Iii  addition  to  the  writings  printed  in  this  volume,  Professor  Lincoln 
wrote  many  magazine  articles,  and  editorials  and  letters  for  denomi- 
national and  secular  newspapers,  and  also  addresses  on  different  occa- 
sions, besides  essays  and  lectures  which  have  not  been  printed.  Among 
these  writings  are  the  following  :  — 

A  Review  of  Becker's  Gallus,  Bibliotheca  Sacra.     1845. 

On  Roman  Slavery,  a  Translation  from  Becker,  Bibliotheca  Sacra. 
1845. 

Roman  Private  Life,  Bibliotheca  Sacra.     1846. 

A  Review  of  Alschefski's  Livy,  Bibliotheca  Sacra.     1847. 

Anthon's  Classical  Editions,  North  American  Review.     1850. 

A  Review  of  the  Life  of  Francis  Horner,  Christian  Review.     1854. 

The  Teacher's  Preparation,  printed  for  the  Rhode  Island  Sunday 
School  Convention.  1859. 

Historical  Address,  Fiftieth  Anniversary  of  the  First  Baptist  Sunday 
School,  printed  18691 

Commemorative  Discourse,  The  Life  and  Services  of  Rev.  Alexis 
Caswell,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  printed  1877. 

History  of  the  First  Baptist  Sunday  School,  at  the  250th  Anniversary 
of  the  Church,  printed  1889  ;  and  papers  which  have  not  been  printed : 

Schiller's  William  Tell,  a  Lecture  written  in  connection  with  the 
Benefit  Street  School. 

Iphigenia,  a  College  Lecture.     1875-1877. 

Roman  Literature  from  14  to  117  A.  r>.,  a  College  Lecture. 

Professor  Lincoln  published  editions  of  Latin  classics  :  — 

"  Selections  from  Livy,"  1847,  new  edition  1882.  (44,000  copies 
printed.) 

"  The  Works  of  Horace,"  1851,  new  edition  1882.  (16,400  copies 
printed.) 

"  Ovid,"  1883.     (About  4,200  copies  printed.) 

THE    SNOW-STORM    SUNDAY    OF    1856. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  the  superintendent  of  the  First  Baptist  Sunday- 
school  till  the  year  1876,  a  period  of  twenty-one  years.  During  this  time 
he  kept  a  record  of  the  attendance,  collection,  conversions,  new  scholars 
and  teachers,  and  also  of  his  own  remarks  to  the  school.  The  following 
is  the  record  January  6, 1856  :  "  This,  the  first  Sunday  of  '56,  deserves  the 
distinction  of  Snoiv-Storm  Sunday.  All  night  it  snowed  fast  and  with 
intense  cold  and  with  no  wind,  so  that  in  the  morning  the  ground  was 
covered  about  a  foot  and  a  half  on  a  level.  It  was  still  snowing,  together 
with  wind  and  drifting,  when  the  first  bell  rang,  so  that  there  was  no 
chance  for  school.  I  was  the  first  to  be  in  the  vestry,  and  there  found 


APPENDIX.  593 

Charles  Burrill  (the  sexton)  trying  to  get  the  vestry  and  church  warm. 
He  had  been  there  since  four  o'clock  and  driving  the  fires  all  the  time ; 
had  used  up  two  feet  and  a  half  of  wood  in  kindling  and  keeping  up  the 
coal  fire  in  the  furnaces  and  the  fires  in  the  stoves.  This  comprises  the 
list  for  the  day :  Teachers  and  officers,  4 ;  Bible  class,  3 ;  boys,  2 ; 
total,  9." 

Professor  Lincoln  adopted  the  plan  of  systematic  Sunday-school  lessons 
for  each  year,  thus  antedating  the  present  arrangement  of  the  national 
system  by  many  years. 

PROFESSOR    LINCOLN'S   VIEWS    AS    TO    SUNDAY-SCHOOL    TEACHING. 

The  following  extract  is  from  an  essay  entitled  "  The  Sunday-school 
Teacher's  Preparation  for  his  Class,''  written  by  Professor  Lincoln  in 
1859.  This  is  interesting  because  it  embodies  something  of  his  concep- 
tion of  teaching  in  general,  and  also  appears  to  recall  his  own  early 
religious  thoughts :  — 

"  In  the  proper  business  of  instruction,  ji  is  all-important  to  comimmi- 
cate  clear  and  intelligible  ideas  of  the  truth.  It  is  recorded  in  Nehe- 
miah  that  the  sacred  teachers  read  to  the  people  in  '  the  law  of  God 
distinctly,  and  gave  the  sense,  and  caused  them  to  understand  the  read- 
ing.' I  do  not  know  a  better  statement  than  this,  of  the  point  I  am  now 
considering.  We  too,  as  Sunday-school  teachers,  must  give  the  sense 
of  the  passage,  and  cause  the  class  to  understand  the  meaning  of  what  is 
read.  Here,  even  more  than  anywhere  else  all  vague  notions  are  not 
only  useless,  but  also  most  hurtful.  All  must  be  distinct  and  intelligi- 
ble. And  even  when  we  have  clear  and  accurate  knowledge  ourselves, 
we  may  fail  to  impart  it,  by  not  adapting  it  to  the  comprehension  of 
a  young  mind.  We  may  err,  either  in  forms  of  conception,  or  of  lan- 
guage, or  of  both.  We  need  to  put  ourselves,  by  thought  and  memory, 
into  the  condition  of  a  child ;  to  call  up  the  remembrances  of  our 
early  life  and  experience,  the  wants  of  which  we  were  conscious,  the 
difficulties  we  used  to  feel,  and  the  ways  in  which  our  difficulties  were 
met,  or  failed  to  be  fully  met.  I  think  we  can  all  remember  how,  in 
our  early  years,  we  were  often  puzzled  and  bewildered  by  expressions 
of  which  we  knew  scarcely  anything,  except  that  they  were  very  hard 
words.  Is  it  probable  that  a  child  generally  understands  us,  when  we 
tell  him  that  he  must  have  '  a  new  heart,'  or  that  he  must  be  '  con- 
verted ?  '  And  so  of  other  expressions,  such  as  '  regeneration,'  '  redemp- 
tion,' and  the  like.  These  and  many  others  like  them,  familiar  as  they 
are,  are  yet  theological  terms,  or  embody  general  or  abstract  conceptions, 
or  else  are  so  remote  from  the  mental  associations  of  children  that  they 
cannot  comprehend  them,  except  by  special  explanation.  Such  words, 
indeed,  we  need  not  shun  ;  and  if  they  are  Bible  words,  let  them,  with 
the  verses  that  contain  them,  be  fixed  in  the  memory  and  gotten  by 


594  APPENDIX. 

heart :  but  let  us  teach  their  meaning  as  clearly  as  we  can,  that  the  young 
mind  may  associate  with  them  clear  and  correct  ideas." 

PROFESSOR    LINCOLN    AS    A    CHURCH-MEMBER. 
By  Rev.  T.  Edwin  Brown,  D.  D. 

For  more  than  fifty  years  the  life  of  Professor  Lincoln  and  that  of  the 
Old  First  Baptist  Church  flowed  on  together.  It  helped  to  form  his 
spiritual  character.  He  helped  to  make  its  history  of  influence.  During 
his  student  days  he  sat  in  the  gallery  of  the  ancient  edifice,  and  felt  the 
glittering  eye,  the  penetrating  voice,  the  vitalizing  touch  of  Doctor  Patti- 
son.  He  was  the  companion  and  helper  of  the  sainted  Granger.  For 
twenty-two  years  he  was  a  deacon,  and  for  twenty-one  years  the  super- 
intendent of  the  Sunday-school.  Of  the  untiring  service,  of  the  sym- 
pathy for  the  suffering,  of  the  brightness  gladdening  childhood  and 
youth,  of  the  courage  and  patience  infused  into  the  hearts  of  his  pastors, 
which  these  years  represent,  only  they  can  form  due  estimate  who  knew 
the  man  and  what  gentleness,  graciousness,  persistence,  thoroughness,  and 
entire  self-devotement  he  put  into  his  work.  The  contagious  enthusiasm 
of  which  his  pupils  speak  characterized  all  he  did. 

Whenever  he  appeared  in  the  prayer-meeting  —  and  he  was  a  faithful 
attendant,  busy  man  though  he  was  —  his  pastor  was  sure  the  meeting 
could  not  be  dull.  His  very  face  was  a  benediction.  How  he  opened  to 
us  the  Scriptures,  making  old  history  march  and  countermarch  before 
our  eyes,  setting  forth  psalm  and  gospel  with  new  and  living  meanings, 
out  of  the  treasures  of  his  affluent  learning  and  the  riches  of  his  ripening 
experience  !  And  his  prayers,  how  spiritual  they  were,  how  felicitous  in 
expression,  how  childlike  in  temper,  how  suited  to  the  occasion,  how 
brotherly  in  their  embrace,  as  if  "the  spirit  of  Thy  most  excellent 
charity,"  which  he  so  often  invoked,  had  taken  him  and  his  fellow-wor- 
shipers alike  upon  its  broad  and  buoyant  wings,  and  lifted  us  all  into 
the  presence  of  the  living  God.  Oh  it  was  good  to  be  there !  One,  at 
least,  of  the  little  company  who  gathered  in  later  years  in  the  old  vestry, 
felt  that  it  was  worth  a  long  walk  or  a  great  sacrifice  to  hear  Professor 
Lincoln  speak  or  pray. 

On  the  death  of  George  I.  Chace,  Professor  Lincoln  was  called  to  the 
vacant  moderatorship  of  the  Charitable  Baptist  Society,  the  legal  corpo- 
ration of  the  church.  It  was  an  honorable  post.  Such  men  as  the 
Nicholas  Browns  and  Samuel  G.  Arnold  had  filled  it.  It  was  a  respon- 
sible trust.  The  very  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  church  itself  depended 
much  on  the  tact,  energy,  integrity,  and  executive  skill  of  the  society's 
moderator.  Everybody  trusted  the  new  leader.  Everybody  felt  sure 
that  his  keen  eyes  would  discern  needs,  his  enthusiasm  carry  measures, 
his  suavity  reduce  inevitable  friction  to  the  lowest  point.  He  loved  the 
old  building,  from  its  foundations  to  the  vane  on  the  steeple.  Its  walls 


APPENDIX.  595 

and  timbers  held  for  him  as  for  others  the  sacred  palimpsests  recording 
the  hallowed  memories  of  many  generations,  and  he  cared  for  it  all  as  if  it 
were  his  own.  He  loved  the  spiritual  body,  whence  he  had  drawn,  into 
which  he  had  poured,  so  much  of  his  own  life-blood,  and  he  gave  to  it, 
gladly,  this  new  service  of  his  closing  years.  If  a  coat  of  paint  was 
needed  for  the  house,  and  extra  money  must  be  had ;  if  an  actual  defi- 
ciency in  the  treasury  must  be  met  or  guarantee  provided  against  one 
possible,  after  consultation  with  his  colleagues  he  started.  Do  you  not 
see  him  now  ?  The  lithesome  form,  the  springing  gait,  the  cheery  face, 
skipping  into  offices  and  up  door-steps  as  briskly  as  if  he  were  a  boy  of 
twenty,  and  were  not  wearing  the  silver  crown !  You  never  would  think 
he  had  left  his  beloved  Horace  and  Cicero  and  Livy  behind  him,  that  a 
pile  of  Latin  exercises  or  examination  papers  were  waiting  his  corrections, 
or  that  he  was  bent  on  the  disagreeable  errand  of  u  collecting."  Out 
comes  the  little  book  from  his  pocket.  The  face  beams  with  winsome- 
ness.  "  For  our  dear  church,  you  know."  A  few  clear  words  of  expla- 
nation, and  down  goes  your  name  for  a  good  sum.  You  thank  him  for 
the  privilege.  You  wish  he  would  not  hurry.  But  the  light-bearer  is 
off,  leaving  sunshine  all  around  you,  but  carrying  a  plenty  with  him  to 
the  next  place.  Did  he  drop  that  little  book  from  his  ascension  chariot, 
as  Elijah  did  his  mantle  ?  Or  was  the  secret  his  own,  and  incommuni- 
cable ? 

There  are  places  left  empty  by  Professor  Lincoln's  departure  which 
have  been  filled.  But  no  more  than  you  can  fill  his  place  in  the  home 
can  you  fill  his  place  in  the  prayer-meeting  and  in  the  social  and  aggres- 
sive life  of  the  church,  or  in  the  heart  of  one  he  honored  by  his  confi- 
dence, cheered  by  his  hopefulness,  guided  by  his  sweet  reasonableness, 
and  who  was  so  grateful  and  proud  for  eight  happy  years  to  know  that 
he  was  the  friend  and  pastor  of  so  rare  and  radiant  a  soul. 

"  DE    SENECTUTE  !  " 

Some  thirty  years  ago,  or  more,  Professor  Lincoln  and  his  brother 
Heman  spent  the  summer  vacation,  with  their  families,  in  a  little  village 
in  the  Massachusetts  hills.  As  Rev.  Heman  Lincoln,  although  consider- 
ably the  younger,  was  the  minister,  and  preached  Sundays  in  the  village 
church,  he  was  treated  by  the  people  as  not  only  more  reverend  because 
of  his  office,  but  was  supposed  to  be  the  more  reverend  as  to  age.  With 
this  mistaken  impression  the  village. pastor  looked  at  Professor  Lincoln 
with  considerable  condescension,  and  said  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Lincoln,  "And 
this  young  man,  does  he  know  anything  about  Sunday-schools  ?  " 

THOLUCK'S  ANECDOTE  OF  PROFESSOR  LINCOLN. 

In  the  year  1868  Rev.  Henry  S.  Burrage  was  in  Halle,  and  Tholuck 
spoke  to  him  of  the  times  when  Professor  Lincoln  and  Professor  Hackett 


596  APPENDIX. 

were  students  at  Halle.  He  said  they  were  among  the  first  Baptists  to 
come  to  the  University  to  study.  Soon  after  their  arrival  they  were 
invited  to  an  evening  company  at  one  of  the  professors'.  In  the  course 
of  the  evening,  one  of  the  company  having  heard  that  the  two  young 
Americans  were  Baptists,  turned  to  Professor  Lincoln  and  said,  "  I 
understand  that  you  are  a  Baptist."  "  Yes,"  replied  the  Professor,  "  I 
am."  "  Well,  then,"  it  was  added,  "  I  suppose  you  can  tell  us  the  hour 
and  the  minute  when  you  were  converted?"  "Yes,"  replied  Professor 
Lincoln,  "  it  was  the  time  when  religion  became  no  longer  a  duty  but  a 
pleasure."  Mr.  Burrage  said  that  he  should  never  forget  Dr.  Tholuck's 
face  as  he  related  the  story.  "  Eh,"  he  exclaimed,  "  that  was  a  magnifi- 
cent answer !  It  made  a  profound  impression  on  the  company  and  a 
most  favorable  one  for  the  Baptists." 

RECOLLECTIONS   OF   NEANDER. 

Professor  Lincoln  seldom  spoke  of  the  professors  under  whom  he  had 
studied  in  Berlin,  with  the  exception  of  Neander,  whose  odd  appearance 
he  was  fond  of  describing.  Neander  was  accustomed,  when  lecturing,  to 
stand  behind  a  curious  high  desk,  with  an  open  framework  and  with 
holes  and  pegs  for  letting  it  up  and  down.  His  costume  was  a  very  long 
coat  coming  down  to  the  tops  of  his  great  jack-boots,  and  with  a  collar 
which  reached  almost  as  high  as  his  head  as  he  bent  over  his  desk,  and 
with  arms  extended  forward  twirled  in  his  fingers  a  quill  pen.  If  this 
quill  dropped  there  was  a  hiatus  in  the  lecture  until  some  one  would  pick 
it  up  and  place  it  in  his  hands,  and  then  the  wonderful  flow  of  learned 
discourse  would  proceed.  It  is  said  that  Neander's  sisters,  who  watched 
over  him  unceasingly,  discovered  one  day  that  his  trousers  were  safe  at 
home  while  he  was  en  route  for  the  lecture-room,  but  on  their  running 
after  him  their  anxiety  was  relieved,  as,  fortunately,  he  had  on  another 
pair.  Another  story  was  that  when  Neander  came  to  Berlin  he  hap- 
pened, in  going  from  his  home  to  the  University  for  the  first  time,  to  be 
with  a  friend,  who,  for  the  sake  of  some  errand,  took  a  circuitous  route, 
and  for  years  he  pursued  the  same  course,  and  only  by  accident  dis- 
covered that  there  was  a  shorter  way.  Neander,  on  one  occasion,  being 
jostled  on  a  sidewalk,  in  order  to  pass  the  crowd,  ste'pped  off  into  the 
gutter  with  one  foot,  keeping  the  other  foot  on  the  curb-stone,  and  keep- 
ing on  in  this  curious,  uneven  fashion,  when  he  reached  home,  complained 
of  being  fatigued  from  the  disordered  condition  of  the  streets. 

TWO   SUGGESTIVE    LETTERS. 

The  following  letters,  written  by  Professor  Lincoln,  one  in  1852,  and 
the  other  in  1858,  throw  light  upon  his  incessant  activity,  and  also  afford 
a  hint  of  the  advantages  of  a  college  professorship  for  amassing  a  for- 
tune :  — 


APPENDIX.  597 

PROVIDENCE,  April  24,  1852. 

As  soon  as  I  got  back  from  Philadelphia  I  got  directly  into  the  college 
mill  again,  and  have  been  going  round  ever  since,  in  the  Mantalini 
phrase,  in  one  "  demm'd  [sit  venia  verbo]  horrid  grind."  Time  gets  on 
most  rapidly,  and  I  can  do  hardly  anything  but  attend  to  my  class  work, 
and  accomplish  some  reading  and  writing  which  are  absolutely  indis- 
pensable. My  work  for  the  Review  is  all  that  I  have  done  apart  from 
my  classes  this  term,  and  that  I  had  to  do  mostly  after  10  p.  M.  With 
three  classes,  three  text-books  to  teach,  and  about  70  Latin  compositions 
per  week  to  correct,  my  hands  are  full  enough.  We  are  having  just 
now  considerable  religious  interest  in  college.  There  have  been  six  or 
seven  very  interesting  cases  of  conversion,  and  there  is  a  marked  serious- 
ness and  thoughtfulness  in  the  demeanor  of  many,  which  we  hope  will 
end  in  the  best  results.  We  are  making  a  Triennial,  and  I  want  to  have 
everything  right.  If  you  have  suggestions  of  any  sort  about  the  Cata- 
logue, please  let  me  have  them  as  soon  as  possible.  That  is  a  thing 
which  we  must  help  to  make  perfect. 

PROVIDENCE,  Nov.  22,  1858. 

I  am  glad  enough  to  have  a  little  recess.  I  have  a  private  pupil  this 
term,  a  young  lady,  to  whom  I  give  two  hours'  instruction  every  day ; 
and  thus  I  have  what  amounts  to  at  least  three  hours  additional  work 
every  day.  The  per  contra,  however,  is  good  pay  (one  dollar  per  hour), 
and  some  variety  of  study  and  occupation.  But  work  seems  to  be  what 
we  are  here  for,  and  we  must  do  with  all  appointments  as  well  as  we 
may.  Life  is  a  hard  problem  to  solve,  and  without  religion  it  would  be 
quite  insoluble. 

THE    BENEFIT   STREET    SCHOOL. 

During  the  years  from  1859  to  1867  Professor  Lincoln  conducted  in 
the  school  building  beside  his  home  on  Benefit  Street  a  school  for  young 
women.  It  was  with  no  lack  of  loyalty  to  Brown  University  that  he 
undertook  this  school,  but  wholly  that  he  might  owe  no  man  anything. 
Then,  as  now,  the  income  of  the  college  was  far  behind  the  require- 
ments. With  characteristic  devotion  he  proposed  to  the  Corporation  a 
reduction  of  his  salary  and  began  the  school.  During  these  years  he  was 
busy  between  the  hours  of  nine  and  two  in  the  school,  with  college  recita- 
tions during  the  afternoon,  and  with  his  studies  and  the  correction  of 
mountains  of  school  and  college  pupils'  exercises  often  into  the  small 
hours  of  the  night.  In  1867,  by  taking  the  German  professorship  in 
addition  to  all  the  Latin  classes,  he  was  able  to  relinquish  the  school. 
Thus  for  about  fifteen  years  he  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father, 
Ensign  Lincoln,  by  doing  two  men's  work.  He  had  early  in  life  acquired 
the  habit  of  a  ten-minutes  after-dinner  nap,  seated  in  his  library  chair, 
and  this  seemed  to  give  him  a  fresh  fund  of  vigor  and  alertness. 


598  APPENDIX. 

Throughout  his  life  he  retained  the  same  power  of  application,  and  many 
of  his  Friday  Club  papers  and  other  writings  were  considered  by  him  as 
affording  pleasurable  occupation  to  be  indulged  in  after  the  day's  work 
was  done.  These  years  of  the  school,  although  crowded  with  hardest 
work,  were  among  the  happiest  of  his  life.  He  felt  great  interest  also  in 
the  postgraduate  careers  of  these  alumnae,  and  carefully  kept  many  of 
their  essays  and  compositions.  His  little  memorandum  book  contains  a 
list  of  255  pupils  of  this  school.  The  Benefit  Street  schoolhouse,  en- 
larged and  improved,  is  now  occupied  by  the  "  Women's  College  con- 
nected with  Brown  University."  Thus  this  most  recent  enlargement  of 
the  scope  and  policy  of  the  college  may  be  viewed  in  some  measure  as 
following  Professor  Lincoln's  example  of  more  than  a  generation  ago. 

Of  this  school  one  of  his  pupils  writes  :  "  Never  was  there  such  a 
teacher.  Every  girl  who  was  so  fortunate  as  to  sit  under  his  instruction 
could  not  fail  to  take  in  something,  no  matter  how  stupid  she  might  be. 
He  had  the  wonderful  faculty  of  making  us  learn  from  a  wish  to  acquire 
knowledge  for  knowledge's  sake.  Every  point  was  fully  and  clearly 
explained,  and  dull  must  the  pupil  have  been  who  could  not  understand 
the  matter  under  discussion.  A  gentle  sarcasm  was  his  only  and  severest 
mode  of  reproof,  for  whatever  he  said  was  so  neatly  put  that  it  hit  its 
mark  each  time.  There  was  never  an  empty  seat  during  the  years  he 
taught  the  female  ideas  how  to  shoot,  and  the  waiting  list  was  always  full. 
The  scholars  were  made  to  understand  that  the  lessons  to  be  learned 
were  for  their  permanent  good  and  not  merely  to  gain  high  marks.  All 
I  know,  and  especially  the  power  acquired  over  my  memory,  enabling  me 
to  continue  to  learn  ever  since  my  school  days  ended,  is  entirely  due  to 
Mr.  Lincoln.  Never  do  I  stop  to  think  of  the  whys  and  wherefores,  but 
some  of  his  methods  suggest  themselves  to  my  mind,  helping  me  to  solve 
my  difficulty." 

A   GOOD   FATHER. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  always  a  kind  father.  To  him  may  be  applied 
with  most  exact  truth  his  own  description  of  his  own  father,  given  in  his 
"  Notes  of  my  Life."  He  never  once  scolded  and  never  was  unfair ;  so 
that  it  seemed  mean  to  disobey  or  grieve  him.  Even  through  the  times 
of  hardest  work  and  smallest  income  he  was  always  most  generous  in 
money  matters  to  his  children,  and  so  cheerful  meanwhile  that  they 
never  suspected  how  hardly  the  money  was  earned.  His  constant  prayer 
was  that  his  children  might  "  grow  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of 
the  Lord."  It  is  doubtful  if,  during  a  period  of  more  than  forty  years, 
a  single  day  passed  when  he  did  not  utter  the  petition  once,  twice,  or 
thrice.  During  his  last  illness,  when  his  step  had  become  feeble  and  he 
knew  the  time  of  his  departure  was  at  hand,  he  used  often  to  shut  him- 
self in  his  little  dressing-room,  where  his  voice  could  be  heard  as  he  was 
alone  in  prayer  with  his  God. 


APPENDIX.  599 


OUTDOOR  LIFE  IN  THE  LONG  VACATIONS. 

Probably  in  the  minds  of  many  of  Professor  Lincoln's  pupils  his 
memory  is  associated  with  the  recitation-room  with  its  various  maps  and 
photographs  of  Rome  and  other  classic  places.  But  those  who  met  him 
during  the  long  vacations  knew  how  he  enjoyed  outdoor  life.  Very 
early  in  the  'fifties  he  began  to  spend  his  summers  at  Narragansett  Pier, 
when  the  "  New  Pier,"  now  long  since  demolished  by  wintry  gales,  was 
in  all  its  glory  of  new  granite,  and  when  the  only  inns  for  "  city 
boarders "  were  two  small  farmhouses.  Here  he  found  unwearied 
pleasure  in  his  favorite  sport  of  fishing.  About  sunrise  he  would  start 
to  secure  the  best  stations  on  the  rocks,  laden  with  tackle  and  menhaden 
for  bait.  Standing  on  the  slippery  ledges,  with  the  surf  boiling  up 
around  his  feet,  he  would  whirl  the  baited  hook  and  throw  the  hand  line 
in  the  good  old-fashioned  way.  In  later  years,  when  the  Pier  had  be- 
come a  city  of  hotels  and  cottages,  he  often  visited  it,  and  enjoyed  the 
sunshine  and  sea ;  but  as  for  fishing,  there  was  too  conspicuous  an  ab- 
sence of  privacy  on  the  rocks,  in  the  presence  of  some  hundreds  of 
fashionably  attired  people. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  also  one  of  the  old-time  frequenters  of  the 
White  Mountains  before  the  railroad  whistle  had  echoed  among  them, 
and  when  staging  instead  of  a  stylish  fad  was  a  long  reality.  His  favor- 
ite mountain  home  was  Jackson,  both  before  and  after  it  had  become 
famous  for  levying  war  against  the  United  States.  Here  during  many 
happy  summers  he  climbed  the  mountains  and  waded  the  brooks.  His 
nearsightedness  used  to  annoy  him  while  fishing,  especially  as,  for  rea- 
sons which  those  who  feel  the  same  way  well  understand,  he  rebelled 
against  spectacles  which  have  the  merit  of  staying  on,  and  preferred  eye- 
glasses which  dropped  off.  On  such  occasions  the  hook  sometimes 
would  be  entangled  in  the  bushes,  and  unconsciously  he  would  be  seeking 
the  trout  where  his  beloved  Horace,  in  his  Second  Ode,  puts  the  fish : 

"  Omne  cum  Proteus  pecus  egit  altos 

Visere  montes, 

Piscium  et  summa  genus  hsesit  ulmc 
Nota  quse  sedes  fuerat  columbis." 

As  he  grew  older  his  enjoyment  of  this  outdoor  mountain  life  increased, 
his  strength  seemed  not  to  fail,  and  his  vexatious  nearsightedness  passed 
away.  Even  after  his  hair  had  whitened  he  would  take  with  glee  the 
occasional  practical  illustrations,  afforded  by  the  smooth  stones  and  slip- 
pery mosses  of  the  Wildcat  River,  of  the  facilis  decensus,  and  enjoyed 
his  favorite  brooks  with  all  the  self-forgetfulness  of  a  schoolboy.  Once 
when  the  morning's  sport  had  been  prolonged  past  noon,  and  in  a  friendly 
farmhouse  with  healthful  hunger  he  relished  a  dinner  of  phenomenally 
knobby  and  unhomogeneous  saleratus  biscuits,  all  oblivious  of  the  familiar 


600  APPENDIX. 

phrase,  "  optimum  condimentum  fames  est"  he  wondered  whether  it 
would  he  possible  to  have  some  just  like  them  in  the  home  at  Providence. 

He  visited  the  top  of  Mount  Washington  a  number  of  times,  and  once 
rode  down  the  rack  railway  on  the  tender  of  the  engine,  which  is  a  much 
more  aerial  experience  than  the  usual  ride  in  the  car.  On  another  occa- 
sion he  was  ascending  the  mountain  by  the  carriage  road  with  a  party  of 
friends  in  an  open  mountain  wagon.  His  seat  chanced  to  be  on  the 
inner  side  where  the  view  down  into  the  Great  Gulf  could  not  be  seen  to 
the  best  advantage.  One  of  the  ladies  was  sitting  on  the  side  next  to 
the  ravine  and  found  the  dizzy  depths  anything  but  enjoyable.  When, 
however,  it  was  proposed  that  they  change  seats,  neither  would  yield  to 
the  other  in  politeness,  she  thinking  it  selfish  to  compel  him  to  sit  so  close 
to  the  edge,  and  he  not  for  an  instant  entertaining  the  thought  of  depriving 
her  of  the  best  seat.  Both  were  content  to  be  uncomfortable,  but  when 
the  true  state  of  things  was  understood  the  change  was  quickly  made. 

He  also  visited  at  different  times  other  parts  of  the  White  Mountains, 
and  enjoyed  the  fishing  in  Israel's  River  and  other  streams  at  Jefferson. 
At  Moosilauke,  too,  he  found  inspiration  in  the  wonderful  view  from  the 
top  of  the  mountain,  and  found  in  his  trouting  expeditions  in  Baker's 
River  that,  like  the  Valley  of  Baca  in  the  Psalms,  the  rain  filled  the 
pools.  But  Jackson  was  his  favorite  resort,  and  after  his  return  from 
his  last  visit  to  Europe,  when  his  last  sickness  was  upon  him  and  wading 
in  brooks  was  given  up,  he  took  pleasure,  and  often  in  company  with  the 
same  genial  landlord  of  over  thirty  years  before,  in  the  beautiful  drives. 
Even  then  he  daily  read  a  portion  of  the  Greek  New  Testament,  just  as 
he  had  for  so  many  years  been  accustomed,  except  that  he  now  used 
Alford's  Gospels  with  its  larger  print  instead  of  the  little  Greek  testa- 
ment which  he  had  kept  since  his  Sophomore  days. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  quick  to  appreciate  the  merits  of  the  revised 
version  of  the  New  Testament,  but  his  criticism  of  it  was  that  on  the 
whole  it  was  better  Greek  than  English. 

THE    HERKOMEK    PORTRAIT. 

When  the  Alumni,  at  the  Commencement  dinner  in  1886,  presented 
to  the  College  his  portrait  by  Herkomer,  Professor  Lincoln  was  deeply 
moved  by  this  unprecedented  token  of  affection  and  respect.  Standing 
upon  the  platform  in  Sayles  Memorial  Hall,  with  the  portrait  just  behind 
him,  and  with  a  voice  tremulous  with  emotion,  he  said :  — 

"  But  what  shall  I,  what  can  I  say,  for  this  overwhelming  kindness  with 
which  you  have  received  me.  I  would  I  could  give  sufficient  return  for 
the  gratitude  that  is  in  my  heart.  In  all  this  long  period  of  fifty-four 
years  since  I  have  been  in  this  University  as  tutor  and  professor,  I  have 
counted  among  my  chief  delights  the  friendship  of  my  pupils.  Their 
testimonies  of  grateful  remembrance  and  affectionate  esteem  have  been 


APPENDIX.  601 

sources  of  unspeakable  joy  to  me,  cheering  my  dark  hours  and  gladden- 
ing my  brightest,  infusing  new  vigor  and  new  strength.  Here  to-day  my 
grateful  joy  has  found  its  culmination  in  this  crowning  distinction  that 
has  found  me  worthy  to  be  painted  by  a  great  artist  and  placed  here  on 
this  wall,  I  may  say  this  family  wall,  of  the  academic  household.  I  shall 
cherish  this  among  my  choicest  memories,  and  hand  it  down  to  my 
children  as  a  precious  legacy,  because  a  token  that  their  father's  life 
work  has  not  been  all  in  vain.  I  must  disagree  with  the  gentleman's 
estimate  of  my  services  to  our  Alma  Mater ;  but  if  they  have  made  any 
approach  to  what  he  declares  them,  it  is  only  because  they  were  rendered 
to  my  Alma  Mater ;  and  they  have  been  rendered  to  her,  and  her  alone. 
I  love  the  old  college,  and  therefore  it  is  that  I  have  been  able  to  do  her 
any  service  as  an  instructor.  If  I  have  done  any  good,  it  is  because  of 
the  subjects  which  I  have  been  allowed  to  teach ;  it  is  because  of  the 
noble  Latin,  and  in  some  part  of  my  course  the  sister  Greek ;  both 
noble  and  belonging  to  the  true  nobilitas  of  the  literature  of  all  ages. 
My  faith  in  them  remains  unimpaired  by  time  and  by  the  adverse  influ- 
ence of  other  studies  to  which  they  have  with  all  the  grace  that  belongs 
to  them  given  way.  I  have  been  glad  to  hear  our  President  say  that  we 
shall  give  no  less  attention  to  Latin  or  Greek,  but  more  attention. 

"  I  want  to  say  before  I  sit  down,  that  whether  or  not  such  superficial 
things  as  the  Latin  salutatory  and  the  conferring  degrees  are  deposed, 
these  languages  and  literatures  are  with  us  to  stay,  and  the  republic  of 
letters  is  safe.  I  am  also  glad  because  it  seems  to  me,  as  we  were  told 
by  Dr.  Murray,  that  these  studies  historically  stand  at  the  head.  The 
masterpieces  of  our  English  tongue  are  on  these  very  models. 

"  Thanking  you  all  for  your  attention  —  these  occasions  come  only 
once  in  fifty  years  —  I  hope  that  in  the  coming  fifty  years,  and  all 
subsequent,  our  Alma  Mater  will  continue  to  dispense  the  same  nurture 
that  she  has  ministered  so  many  years.  These  noble  studies  preserve, 
and  alone  can  preserve,  unbroken  the  chain  of  learning  that  unites  us 
with  remote  generations." 

HOW    LATIN    CAN    BE    TAUGHT. 

From  an  Editorial  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  May,  1890. 

President  Andrews,  of  Brown  University,  in  an  article  on  "  Improve- 
ments in  College  Education,"  written  for  "  The  Christian  Union,"  com- 
plains because  the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin  is  usually  made  laborious, 
dry,  philological,  and  abstract.  The  revolt  from  classical  studies,  in  his 
opinion,  is  due  to  classical  teachers  themselves.  "They  have  not  sound- 
ed," he  says,  "  the  depths  of  riches  lying  at  their  feet.  Students  have 
asked  for  bread  and  they  have  given  stones.  Feed  youth  with  classical 
food  which  shall  be  meat  indeed,  and  they  will  find  it  a  feast,  praising 
you  as  a  bountiful  entertainer  and  never  wishing  to  leave  your  table  for 


602  APPENDIX. 

another's."  The  new  president  of  Brown,  in  contending  that  larger  play 
must  be  given  to  the  elective  system  of  studies  if  higher  education  is  to  be 
thorough,  is  following  the  precedent  established  by  Dr.  Wayland  rather 
than  continuing  the  policy  of  Dr.  Sears  and  Dr.  Robinson,  his  immediate 
predecessors.  When  he  explains,  however,  how  classical  studies  ought  to 
be  conducted  at  college,  he  is  unconsciously  drawing  upon  his  own  remi- 
niscences of  Professor  Lincoln's  class-room.  One  president  after  another 
has  had  his  own  notions  respecting  the  merits  of  the  elective  system  and 
the  value  of  classical  studies,  but  for  half  a  century  the  teaching  of  Latin 
at  Brown  has  been  ideal. 

Very  much  has  been  said  during  recent  years  about  the  importance  of 
making  higher  education  comprehensive,  practical,  and  symmetrical. 
Theorists  have  their  pedantic  phrases  and  academic  contentions,  but  every 
educated  man  knows  in  his  heart  that  his  largest  debt  of  academic  obliga- 
tion is  due  to  the  teacher  who  succeeded  in  inspiring  him  with  enthusiasm 
for  study  —  with  a  genuine  love  of  good  letters.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  chief 
merit  of  classical  studies  that  they  promote,  under  wise  direction,  the 
growth  of  that  ardor  for  good  literature  —  that  passion  for  learning, 
without  which  higher  education  is  unprofitable  and  disappointing.  Stu- 
dents at  Brown  for  fifty  years  have  fallen  under  the  influence  of  a  teacher 
of  the  Arnold  type,  who,  with  one  of  these  rugged,  yet  sympathetic 
natures,  alike  strong  and  mellow,  too  seldom  found  in  colleges,  has  im- 
parted his  own  enthusiasm  for  classical  culture  to  his  classes.  Professor 
Lincoln  has  taught  Latin,  not  as  a  dead  language,  with  grammar  and  acci- 
dence to  be  acquired  by  persistent  drudgery,  but  as  a  literature  vitalized 
with  profound  thought  and  noble  feeling,  and  containing  all  the  assimila- 
tive elements  needed  for  intellectual  growth.  To  read  Horace's  "  Odes  " 
and  the  "  Ars  Poetica  "  under  him  was  to  sit  at  a  bountiful  feast,  and,  in 
President  Andrews'  phrase,  never  to  wish  to  leave  his  table  for  another's. 
How  his  face  was  wont  to  light  up  when,  at  the  close  of  the  Latin  course, 
as  his  custom  was,  he  would  quote  Byron's  "  Farewell,  Horace,  whom  I 
hated  so ;  not  for  thy  fault  but  mine."  He  taught  Latin  as  a  literature 
to  be  felt,  as  well  as  analyzed  and  understood  —  as  a  vital  force  which 
would  create  an  undying  love  of  good  letters. 

PROFESSOR  LINCOLN'S  LAST  VISIT  TO  THOLUCK'S  HOME. 
In  the  year  1887  Professor  Lincoln  visited  Halle  for  the  last  time. 
Here  he  found  the  widow  of  Professor  Tholuck,  with  the  same  kind 
heart  as  the  "  Frau  Rathinn  "  of  almost  half  a  century  before.  Here 
she  received  him  and  his  friends,  and  the  old  days  were  remembered 
when,  on  the  Christmas  Eve  of  1841,  Tholuck  welcomed  "the  two 
Americans,"  and  the  presents  and  cakes  were  given  to  the  students.  It 
was  inspiring  to  see  how  the  good  man's  influence  and  memory  had 
been  kept  ever  fresh  and  helpful  by  Mrs.  Tholuck's  life  of  kind  deeds  to 


APPENDIX.  603 

deserving  students.  For  their  welfare  she  devoted  both  her  income  and 
her  time,  continuing  their  friend  after  their  graduation,  and  following 
with  gladness  their  success  in  the  world.  A  singular  example  of  the 
steadfastness  and  kindliness  of  her  character  was  seen  in  a  bird,  or  what 
appeared  to  be  the  same  bird,  which  had  made  a  nest  in  her  garden  and 
had  come  to  her  window  for  crumbs  for  nearly  thirty  years. 

GERMAN   TROUT   FISHING. 

During  this,  his  last  European  tour,  Professor  Lincoln  found,  in  a 
little  out-of-the-way  German  town,  a  reminder  of  his  White  Mountain 
fishing  experiences.  The  landlord  of  the  village  inn,  desiring  to  do 
honor  to  his  guests,  asked  if  they  would  be  willing  to  have  trout  for 
supper,  for  if  so,  he  would  go  and  catch  some.  The  travelers  felt  inter- 
ested in  the  proposed  sport  and  waited  to  see  the  landlord  start  out  with 
trout  rod  and  flies  and  creel  in  the  proper  sportsman's  array,  and  lead 
the  way  to  some  brook  tumbling  down  from  the  mountains.  They  were 
amused  to  see  him  walk  out  to  the  centre  of  the  village  square  armed 
with  a  short-handled  net,  with  which  he  dipped  up  from  the  basin  of  the 
fountain  two  olive-brown  fish  quite  different  in  appearance,  and  in  flavor 
as  well,  from  White  Mountain  trout. 

A   RAILWAY    ADVENTURE. 

During  this  same  journey  he  had  a  railroad  adventure  which  he  often 
related  with  great  glee.  The  party  was  traveling  in  one  of  the  usual 
little  German  railway  carriages  with  the  doors  at  the  sides,  when  the 
train  stopped  at  a  station  where  there  seemed  to  be  a  restaurant.  They 
were  told  that  the  train  would  wait  a  few  minutes,  and  so  with  American 
independence  two  of  the  party  stepped  out,  crossed  another  track,  and 
proceeded  to  the  station.  This  infraction  of  German  railway  regulations 
thus  far  was  unnoticed,  but  on  the  return  an  obstacle  was  found  in  the 
shape  of  another  train  between  them  and  their  car.  The  various  rail- 
way personages  appeared  stolidly  ignorant  as  to  time  tables.  The  train 
was  too  long  to  go  around ;  the  cars  were  unprovided  with  our  convenient 
end  platforms  and  steps,  and  the  space  beneath  them  was  none  too  ample 
for  a  cat  to  go  under ;  only  one  course  remained  —  to  go  over  the  train. 
This  seemed  to  be  a  somewhat  simple  matter,  as  the  German  cars  are 
very  small  affairs  compared  with  our  own,  and  moreover  are  provided 
with  a  convenient  ladder  on  each  side  for  the  use  of  the  man  who  climbs 
up  and  puts  the  lamps  down  through  a  hole  in  the  roof.  Accordingly 
the  start  was  made  and  the  feat  about  half  accomplished  before  it  was 
noticed  by  the  railway  officials.  Then  began  considerable  commotion, 
and  gesticulation  and  commands  to  come  down.  But  by  dint  of  expla- 
nations in  the  German  language  to  the  officials  that  coming  down  on  the 
farther  side  was  just  as  well  as  to  return  to  the  station,  and  of  sotto  voce 


G04  APPENDIX. 

hints  in  the  vernacular  to  his  comrade  to  keep  on  going,  the  retreat  was 
successfully  covered  and  the  railway  carriage  safely  regained. 

MODERN   LATIN. 

During  this  same  visit  to  Europe  Professor  Lincoln  and  his  party 
en  joyed  a  carriage  ride  up  the  valley  of  the  Upper  Rhine,  in  Switzerland. 
Here  he  became  interested  in  the  peculiar  language  of  a  part  of  the 
people,  which  is  said  to  be  Latin  come  down  from  the  ancient  Etruscans, 
or  at  the  very  latest  from  Roman  legions  stranded  among  the  mountains 
in  the  times  of  Julius  Caesar.  Critics  of  a  skeptical  turn  have  explained 
this  Romansch  language  by  the  introduction  of  Latin  words  during  the 
Middle  Ages  from  the  Romish  ritual.  But  the  Professor,  during  some 
five  days'  drive  with  a  driver  who  spoke  only  this  language,  found  it  to  be 
an  unintelligible  jargon  bearing  no  resemblance  in  sound  to  Latin,  whether 
comparing  it  with  English,  Italian,  Continental,  or  any  other  system  of 
pronunciation,  and  as  much  "  Dutch  "  to  the  Germans  as  German  is  to 
us.  Apparently  there  was  but  slender  foundation  for  the  oft-repeated 
legends  of  a  linguistic  Pompeii  ready  to  be  exhumed  from  Swiss  glaciers. 

THE    LINCOLN   FUND. 

Probably  the  successful  raising  of  the  $100,000  Lincoln  Fund  by  the 
Brown  Alumni  was  the  event  in  his  life  that  excited  his  profoundest 
gratitude.  He  kept  a  list  of  the  contributors  to  this  fund,  which,  during 
the  days  of  his  sickness,  he  often  studied,  and  he  knew  each  individual 
name  by  heart.  Not  many  months  before  his  death  he  made  a  careful 
memorandum  of  the  salary  paid  him  each  year,  beginning  with  his  tutor- 
ship in  1839  at  $400.  And,  just  as  his  life  work  was  about  to  close,  he 
writes  against  the  year  1890-91 :  "  $3,000  by  arrangement  made  with 
the  Corporation  by  the  graduates  in  their  $100,000  fund,  namely,  that  I 
should  have  $3,000  for  the  rest  of  my  life,  whether  I  should  continue  to 
teach  or  not" 

DECLINING  YEARS. 

"  Eheu  fugaces,  Posturae,  Postume, 
Labuntur  anni,  nee  pietas  moram 
Rugis  et  instanti  senectaa 

Afferet  indomitaeque  Morti." 

Professor  Lincoln  was  very  slow  to  acknowledge  or  even  to  suspect 
that  he  could  be  growing  old.  In  February,  1887,  the  newspapers,  in 
giving  an  account  of  the  dinner  of  the  New  York  Alumni  of  Brown, 
described  him  as  "  the  genial  old  gentleman,  with  gray  beard  and  frosted 
hair,"  and  his  comment  was  that  it  was  very  strange  that  people  should 
call  him  old.  Even  during  the  last  few  years  of  his  life,  when  declining 
strength  made  it  imperative  for  him  to  reduce  the  number  of  his  recita- 


APPENDIX.  605 

tions,  he  was  very  loath  to  do  so.  In  reply  to  the  argument  that  it  was 
only  fair  to  give  up  the  Freshmen  and  afford  opportunity  for  some 
younger  professor  to  become  increasingly  useful  to  the  college,  he  urged 
the  very  ingenious  argument,  that  it  was  always  difficult  at  first  for  him 
to  become  well  acquainted  with  each  class,  and  if  he  learned  to  know 
them  while  they  were  Freshmen  he  was  saved  the  labor  of  familiarizing 
himself  with  the  names  and  faces  of  so  many  new  Sophomores. 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  his  illness  he  found  it  very  difficult  to  obey  the 
physician's  advice  and  go  upstairs  slowly.  He  would  run  up  several 
steps,  briskly  as  had  been  his  lifelong  habit,  and  then,  recollecting  the 
new  order  of  things,  would  proceed  more  deliberately,  stepping  up  but 
one  stair  at  a  time.  During  the  last  year  of  his  college  service  his  reci- 
tation-room was  changed  to  the  ground  floor,  and  when  he  became  un- 
able to  walk  or  drive  the  short  distance  to  the  college  he  met  his  classes 
as  long  as  his  strength  permitted  at  his  home. 

He  had  always  been  fond  of  walking  for  pleasure  and  exercise,  not  in  a 
slow  and  meditative  manner,  but  with  alertness  and  with  keen  observation. 
When  increasing  feebleness  of  body  compelled  him  to  give  up  his  walks 
he  became  almost  as  much  attached  to  driving,  and  there  were  few 
country  roads  near  Providence  with  which  he  was  not  familiar.  Like 
his  brother  Heman,  he  took  great  interest  in  the  students'  athletic  sports. 
He  regularly  drove  into  Lincoln  Field  and  watched  the  baseball  games. 
The  students  soon  grew  to  expect  his  visits  and  keep  their  eyes  on  the 
big  gate.  And  when  the  carriage  entered  the  grounds  the  Professor  was 
always  greeted  with  a  sound  dear  to  his  ears,  the  good  old  triple  cheer  of 
Brown.  No  one  was  more  enthusiastic  when  Brown  came  out  ahead. 
Even  during  the  last  weeks  of  his  illness,  when  he  could  not  leave  his 
bed,  he  would  listen,  as  the  afternoons  would  wane,  and  when  he  heard 
the  cheering  would  look  up  brightly  and  say,  "  Our  boys  are  winning," 
or,  if  all  was  quiet,  he  would  say,  "  I  'm  afraid  our  boys  are  not  doing  as 
well  as  usual." 

During  the  last  summer  of  his  life  Professor  Lincoln  was  able  to  en- 
dure the  journey  to  Petersham,  Mass.  Here  he  had  the  great  pleasure 
of  seeing  all  his  grandchildren  together  as  he  watched  them  at  their 
play.  Here  too  he  sat,  well  wrapped,  upon  the  porch,  as  twilight  came 
on,  gazing  at  the  beautiful  sunsets.  With  these  bright  surroundings  it 
seemed  as  if  he  gained  strength  of  body  as  well  as  happiness  of  mind. 

His  favorite  hymn,  which  he  loved  to  join  in  singing  to  the  good  old 
tune  of  "  Boylston,"  was,  — 

"  Welcome,  sweet  day  of  rest, 
That  saw  the  Lord  arise  ! 
Welcome  to  this  reviving'  breast, 
And  these  rejoicing  eyes." 


606  APPENDIX. 


LAST    DAYS. 

In  his  last  sickness,  when  extreme  bodily  weakness  made  continuous 
speech,  and  even  consecutive  thought  difficult,  he  was  troubled  with  what 
he  called  "  vagaries,"  or  unbidden  thoughts,  and  with  difficulty  in  recall- 
ing just  the  word  he  needed.'  As  a  refuge  from  these  troubles,  he  would 
often  listen  to  hymns,  or  would  himself  repeat  verses  from  the  Bible. 
Once,  when  he  was  seemingly  exhausted  and  sleeping,  he  recited  with 
vigor  and  emphasis  that  beautiful  psalm,  "  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,  I 
shall  not  want,"  and  making  a  slight  mistake,  would  not  be  content  until 
he  had  corrected  it,  and  so  continued,  "  Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil,"  and  repeated  all  of 
the  verses.  Nothing  but  a  lifelong  love  of  the  Bible  could  have  brought 
in  this  time  of  utter  weakness  these  comforting  words  to  his  lips.  Only 
a  few  days  before  his  death,  when  the  old  Sunday-school  hymn,  "  There  is 
rest  for  the  weary,"  was  sung  to  him,  he  joined  with  feeble  but  glad 
voice  in  the- refrain,  — 

"  On  the  other  side  of  Jordan, 

In  the  sweet  fields  of  Eden, 
Where  the  tree  of  life  is  blooming, 
There  is  rest  for  me," 

and  the  singers  could  hardly  sing  for  realizing  how  near  to  him  was  that 
rest.  Again,  the  singing  of  the  hymn,  "O  Paradise!  O  Paradise!"  in 
some  strange  way,  through  God's  kindness,  so  lifted  him  above  all  sense 
of  the  extreme  weariness  of  exhaustion  peculiar  to  the  disease  (pernicious 
anaemia),  that  he  broke  out  in  exclamations  of  wonder  and  thanks,  "  O, 
such  rapture !  and  the  goodness  of  God  that  such  a  one  as  I  should  be 
permitted  to  enjoy  it !  "  Among  his  last  words  that  could  clearly  be  dis- 
tinguished were  those  from  John's  Gospel,  "  Let  not  your  heart  be  trou- 
bled, neither  let  it  be  afraid,"  and  then  to  those  who  stood  around  him 
the  words,  "  Little  children,  love  one  another."  He  passed  away  very 
early  in  the  morning,  long  before  daylight,  October  17,  1891. 

EDITORIAL     FROM    "  HARPER'S     WEEKLY,"     OCTOBER,    1891,    WRITTEN     BY 
THE    LATE   GEORGE    WILLIAM    CURTIS. 

The  death  of  Professor  Lincoln,  of  Brown  University,  was  anticipated, 
for  he  had  been  long  an  invalid,  but  it  brings  a  pang  to  a  very  widely 
scattered  circle  of  his  old  pupils,  and  to  all  who  knew  the  generous, 
candid,  high-hearted,  and  accomplished  man.  He  was  in  the  true  sense 
a  scholar,  a  lover  of  learning  and  of  literature,  not  subdued  by  scholar- 
ship nor  by  the  conditions  of  teaching  into  a  pedant  or  a  formalist,  but 
whose  vitality  transformed  his  learning  into  character  and  life. 

For  nearly  fifty  years  he  had  been  the  most  familiar  figure  at  Brown, 


APPENDIX.  607 

his  term  of  service,  we  believe,  longer  than  that  of  any  other  teacher ; 
and  from  the  first  to  the  last  his  influence  and  impression  upon  the  stu- 
dents were  most  liberalizing  and  stimulating,  so  that  every  year  a  large 
body  of  young  men  passed  from  the  college  into  every  part  of  the  coun- 
try and  into  all  active  pursuits  with  hearts  full  of  gratitude  and  affection 
for  Professor  Lincoln.  It  is  a  great  power  which  such  a  teacher  exer- 
cises, and  no  man  can  have  a  nobler  monument  than  such  a  fond  recol- 
lection. 

The  freshness  of  his  mind  and  heart  was  wholly  unwasted  by  the 
routine  of  daily  duty.  His  interest  in  the  classics  which  he  taught, 
especially  Latin,  which  was  his  chair,  kindled  the  minds  of  the  young 
men  who  had  thought  them  hard  and  dry.  His  sympathy  and  humor 
overflowed  the  hour,  and  many  a  man  owes  much  of  the  purest  literary 
delight  of  his  life  to  Professor  Lincoln's  kindly  persistence  and  intelli- 
gence. A  happy  literary  allusion,  an  apt  quotation,  a  flowing  line,  or  a 
noble  metaphor  gave  him  a  pleasure  which  was  inspiring  to  those  of 
similar  taste,  who  instinctively  found  in  his  smile  and  approval  their 
happy  reward.  Professor  Lincoln's  health  was  never  very  robust,  but 
his  attendance  at  his  post  was  interrupted  only  by  two  or  three  excur- 
sions to  Europe,  which  he  turned  to  the  best  account.  Toward  the  end 
he  was  obliged  reluctantly  to  relinquish  his  chair,  and  cheered  by  the 
tenderest  affection  his  life  tranquilly  ended.  But  by  one  life  how  much 
more  than  its  own  individual  activity  is  quickened !  And  a  life  like 
Professor  Lincoln's  is  inwrought  in  how  many  lives  like  a  fine  gold 
thread  in  an  endless  tapestry  ! 

FKOM    THE    ADDRESS    OF    PROFESSOR    ALBERT    HARKNESS,    PH.    D.,    LL.    D., 
AT    THE   NEW   YORK   BROWN   ALUMNI   DINNER,  APRIL,  1892. 

We  come  around  this  board  to-night,  my  brothers,  with  mingled  emo- 
tions, with  glad  memories,  and  yet  with  sad  memories.  We  greet  our 
friends  with  joy  and  with  grateful  hearts,  but  we  miss  from  our  number 
the  genial  countenance  and  joyous  tones  of  one  who  in  former  years  has 
been  the  life  of  these  annual  reunions.  We  cannot  forget  at  such  an 
hour  as  this  that  since  we  last  assembled  here  the  gifted  and  genial 
Lincoln,  the  beloved  teacher  and  friend  of  so  many  of  us,  has  rested 
from  his  labors.  Even  if  our  lips  were  silent,  our  hearts,  I  am  sure, 
would  pay  a  grateful  tribute  to  his  memory. 

But  in  the  years  that  are  past  the  name  of  Professor  Lincoln  has 
been  wont  to  awaken  in  our  hearts  only  emotions  of  joy  and  gladness ; 
so  let  it  be  here  to-night ;  so  he  would  have  it.  Dismissing,  therefore, 
all  thought  of  our  own  loss,  we  do  well  to  think  and  speak  only  of  the 
joy  and  the  blessing  which  he  has  brought  into  all  our  lives,  and  into  the 
lives  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  his  pupils  scattered  over  the  land, 
filling  positions  of  trust  and  influence,  stronger  and  better  and  happier 


608  APPENDIX. 

to-day  because  of  the  inspiring  influence  and  the  glad  memories  which 
they  carried  with  them  into  life  from  that  well-remembered  room  in  old 
University  Hall. 

The  name  of  Professor  Lincoln,  as  instructor  or  professor,  has  adorned 
our  Catalogue  for  fifty  years,  a  term  of  service  entirely  unparalleled  in  the 
history  of  the  University,  and  during  this  entire  period  he  has  given  his 
very  best  thought  and  his  most  earnest  endeavors  to  the  welfare  of  his 
beloved  Alma  Mater.  For  her  he  has  cherished  the  warmest  affection  ; 
to  her  he  has  devoted  his  time,  his  talents,  and  his  stores  of  learning. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  a  born  teacher.  With  quick  and  generous 
sympathies  that  brought  him  at  once  into  close  contact  with  all  the  mem- 
bers of  his  classes,  he  entered  readily  and  heartily  into  all  their  youthful 
feelings,  appreciated  their  difficulties,  and  gladly  furnished  them  the 
needed  encouragement  and  help.  With  a  kind  word  of  admonition  for 
the  wayward  and  indolent,  he  was  ever  ready  to  recognize  and  reward, 
not  only  marked  success,  but  all  honest  effort.  With  high  ideals  and 
aspirations  himself,  full  of  zeal  and  enthusiasm,  he  soon  imparted  to  his 
pupils  something  of  his  own  love  of  excellence  and  truth. 

Many  of  you  remember,  I  am  sure,  what  joy  was  wont  to  light  up  his 
countenance  in  the  class-room  when  you  gave  an  especially  feh'citous 
rendering  of  some  striking  passage  in  a  favorite  Latin  author,  and  with 
what  emphasis  and  tones  he  would  utter  these  words,  so  dear  to  the 
faithful  student's  heart :  "  Very  good,  sir ;  bene,  optime." 

Among  all  the  fortunate  and  auspicious  events  that  have  marked  the 
recent  years  of  Profesor  Lincoln's  life,  the  organization  of  the  Brown 
University  Alumni  of  New  York  deserves  special  and  emphatic  mention. 
For  many  of  the  proudest  and  happiest  days  of  his  life  he  was  indebted 
to  your  kind  and  generous  appreciation  of  his  character  and  services. 
These  annual  reunions  were  to  him  seasons  of  unalloyed  happiness. 
Here  he  felt  himself,  in  the  fullest  sense,  in  the  midst  of  brothers  good 
and  true,  brothers  to  whom  he  was  bound  by  more  than  Brunonian 
bonds.  Your  generosity  and  your  kindly  interest  gladdened  his  heart 
when  on  that  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  graduation  you  aided  in  placing 
his  bright  and  genial  face,  in  a  masterly  work  of  art,  among  the  worthies 
that  adorn  the  walls  of  Sayles  Memorial  Hall.  You  again  brought  new 
joy  and  a  new  blessing  into  the  closing  years  of  his  life  by  erecting  that 
noble  monument  to  his  memory  in  the  establishment  of  the  Lincoln 
Fund,  which  will  carry  to  distant  generations  his  name  and  yours  linked 
in  perpetual  brotherhood  and  associated  with  one  of  the  noblest  benefac- 
tions that  have  ever  blessed  our  Alma  Mater. 

EDITORIAL    FROM   THE    "  PROVIDENCE   JOURNAL,"    OCTOBER,    1891. 

It  is  no  reflection  on  other  highly  regarded  instructors  who  in  times 
past  or  present  have  been  connected  with  Brown  University  to  say  that 


APPENDIX.  609 

Professor  Lincoln  was  the  best  beloved  of  all  those  who  have  ever  sat 
before  the  classes  of  that  institution.  Others  have  won  respect  for  their 
learning  and  character,  gratitude  for  their  assistance,  and  even  that  affec- 
tionate regard  which  college  boys  are  wont  to  bestow  on  their  professors 
much  after  the  fashion  of  the  tendrils  of  growing  vines  which  must  cling 
around  something,  and  naturally  entwine  the  object  that  happens  to  be 
nearest.  But  Professor  Lincoln  had  that  rare  felicity  which  is  given  to 
few  men  of  inspiring  a  real,  deep,  and  abiding  love  for  himself  in  the 
hearts  of  all  who  came  into  contact  with  him,  even  though  the  relation- 
ship was  not  specially  intimate  nor  the  contact  much  more  than  passing. 
He  made  loving  friends  everywhere ;  he  kept  them  always,  and  his  death 
will  bring  a  sense  of  personal  grief  to  men  whose  very  names  he  may 
have  long  ago  forgotten,  and  of  personal  loss  to  those  whom  miles  and 
years  have  long  separated  from  their  old  Latin  professor. 

He  won,  in  this  exceptional  degree,  the  affections  of  his  pupils  and  of 
those  who  knew  him  in  the  social  relationships  of  life,  not  by  any  unex- 
plainable  magnetism.  What  there  was  in  his  personality,  his  life,  and  his 
work  that  drew  men  towards  him  was  patent  enough  to  any  eye.  There 
was  a  broad  humanity  in  his  temperament  and  culture  that  opened  out  to 
sympathy  with  all  mankind  and  a  sunniness  of  disposition  which  envel- 
oped him  in  all  his  work,  and  which  as  easily  drew  to  him  for  comfort 
and  advice  the  weak  and  discouraged  as  the  strong  and  cheerful  for  good 
fellowship.  There  was  no  one  to  whom  the  college  boys  so  readily  went 
in  their  troubles  and  difficulties  as  to  Professor  Lincoln,  and  no  one  in 
the  cultured  circles  of  Providence  with  whom  established  and  self-poised 
men  more  gladly  associated  in  the  pursuit  of  the  pleasures  of  mental  and 
social  intercourse.  He  was  a  social  and  humane  man  in  the  best  sense 
of  these  words  —  ready  even  as  his  own  loved  Horace  was  for  gracious 
converse  on  every  proper  theme  for  discussion,  and  able  to  say,  like 
Terence,  "  Homo  sum  ;  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto." 

The  studies  of  his  profession  had  not  dried  up  the  sweet  juices  of 
humanity,  nor  had  his  deep  knowledge  of  ancient  life  lessened  the  sym- 
pathy he  felt  for  the  present  life  around  him.  It  was  this  sympathy 
which  drew  to  him  the  love  of  others,  and  herein,  too,  was  one  of  the 
secrets  of  his  success  in  teaching.  He  could  lead  pupils  up  the  rough 
road  of  knowledge  by  showing  that  he  appreciated  their  difficulties.  The 
other  secret  of  his  success  was  his  own  boundless  love  of  broad  literary 
culture  and  his  abiding  belief  that  in  the  study  of  Latin  literature  could 
be  found  a  helpful  means  toward  attaining  that  culture.  It  was  with 
that  belief  constantly  in  mind  that  he  read  the  Latin  authors  with  his 
classes.  He  read  them  as  literature,  not  as  mere  agencies  for  teaching 
boys  to  translate  from  one  language  to  another,  nor  as  pegs  on  which  to 
hang  dissertations  on  grammar  and  philology.  There  was  ever  present 
in  his  instruction  the  effort  to  bring  to  the  perception  of  his  pupils  the 


610  APPENDIX. 

literary  beauties  of  the  works  they  were  reading,  and  so  to  cultivate  taste 
and  inform  the  judgment.  Many  who  had  gone  through  the  dry  curri- 
culum of  classical  and  mathematical  studies  discovered  in  Professor 
Lincoln's  class-room  for  the  first  time  that  the  ancient  languages  were 
made  for  something  more  than  for  grammarians  to  analyze. 

They  learned  there,  if  they  used  the  opportunities  offered,  the  first 
lessons  of  a  genuine  literary  culture ;  they  drew  from  the  genial  and 
learned  man  who  led  them  through  the  ever-delightful  pages  of  Horace 
something  of  his  own  love  for  the  old-fashioned  "  Humanities,"  for  sound 
learning,  and  high  morality ;  they  received  an  impress  that  made  them 
something  more  than  builders  and  traders  and  professional  men  all  the 
rest  of  their  lives.  Professor  Lincoln  belonged,  of  course,  to  a  school  of 
classical  instructors  that  is  now  fast  giving  place  to  a  new  generation 
with  new  and  presumably  better  methods  of  instruction,  and  he  may 
have  put  too  high  an  estimate  on  the  importance  of  classical  studies  in 
modern  liberal  education.  But  there  are  a  great  many  of  his  old  pupils 
who  will  recall  with  a  sense  of  genuine  gratitude  that  they  learned  some- 
thing more  than  grammar  in  his  class-room  ;  that  they  were  led  by  him 
to  a  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  the  beauties  of  literature  in  whatever 
language  preserved,  and  that  it  was  his  hand  that  opened  for  them  the 
gates  of  an  exceedingly  pleasant  land,  whither,  in  intervals  between  the 
cares  and  labors  of  active  life,  it  is  still  the  privilege  of  the  educated  man 
to  steal  away  for  refreshment. 

Of  his  personal  character  and  of  the  high  position  he  occupied  in  the 
esteem  of  the  community  it  is  needless  to  speak.  For  years  that  are 
many  to  count  he  has  lived  and  labored  in  this  city,  sympathizing  with 
all  good  works,  though  confining  himself  chiefly  to  the  tasks  of  his  own 
position  at  the  University,  and  now,  after  a  continuity  of  service  which 
few  men  enjoy,  he  lays  his  armor  down  in  the  place  where  he  put  it  on. 
His  fellow-citizens  outside  the  college  have  watched  his  long  career 
among  them  with  both  admiration  and  pride.  They  have  admired  his 
culture  and  scholarship,  the  grace  with  which  he  united  to  the  learning 
of  the  scholar  the  unfailing  courtesy  of  the  gentleman  and  the  unaffected 
piety  of  the  pure-minded  believer.  They  have  been  proud  of  him  as 
a  citizen  who  reflected  credit  and  dignity  on  the  community.  If  they 
have  not  shown  their  admiration  and  pride  by  public  offices  and  honors, 
it  is  because  he  himself  was  averse  to  receiving  such  manifestations  of 
regard  and  confidence.  Yet  a  great  many  men  in  this  land  of  ours 
have  been  conspicuously  honored  and  rewarded  in  one  way  and  another 
who  never  rendered  a  tithe  of  the  good  service  to  the  country  that  John 
Larkin  Lincoln  rendered  while  he  was  helping  to  fill  the  minds  of  fifty 
classes  of  young  men  with  high  thoughts,  pure  morality,  and  an  abiding 
love  of  culture  and  sound  learning  of  whatever  kind  or  scope.  "  Quod 
enim  munus  reipublicae  afferre  majus  meliusve  possumus  quam  si  docemus 
atque  enidimus  juventutem  ?  " 


APPENDIX  611 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

From  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  October,  1891.     Written  by  Prof.  William  Carey 

Poland. 

JOHN  LARKIN  LINCOLN,  LL.  D.,  professor  of  the  Latin  language  and 
literature  in  Brown  University  since  the  year  1845,  was  born  in  Boston 
on  the  23d  of  February,  1817.  He  was  the  son  of  Ensign  and  Sophia 
Oliver  (Larkin)  Lincoln.  He  came  of  a  good  ancestry.  His  father  was 
a  printer  and  publisher,  a  man  of  strong  character,  good  education,  ster- 
ling integrity,  and  fervent,  unaffected  piety.  He  was  a  prominent  Bap- 
tist, and  as  a  licensed  preacher  often  officiated  acceptably  in  the  pulpit. 
He  was  benevolent,  philanthropic,  and  hospitable.  The  life  of  the  home 
of  which  he  was  the  head  was  distinctly  and  firmly  religious,  and  at  the 
same  time  pervaded  by  a  genial,  affectionate  spirit.  The  children  of  the 
family  were  interesting  and  intelligent  and  had  the  advantages  of  educa- 
tion in  the  excellent  schools  for  which  Boston  even  then  was  distinguished- 
A  younger  brother  of  Professor  Lincoln  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Heman  Lin- 
coln, a  graduate  of  Brown  University  in  1840,  and  for  twenty  years  a 
professor  in  the  Newton  Theological  Institution. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  prepared  for  college  chiefly  at  the  famous 
Public  Latin  School  in  Boston.  He  entered  this  school  in  1826,  when 
Mr.  B.  A.  Gould  was  master.  Among  his  classmates  were  his  brother 
Joshua  Lincoln,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Bishop  J.  B.  Fitzpatrick,  and 
Francis  Minot  Weld.  Other  pupils  of  his  time  were  Professor  H.  W. 
Torrey,  Rev.  Dr.  G.  E.  Ellis,  John  Lothrop  Motley,  William  M.  Evarts, 
Dr.  H.  J.  Bigelow,  Judge  Charles  Devens,  Judge  C.  S.  Bradley,  and 
Edward  Everett  Hale.  In  1832,  when  fifteen  years  old,  he  entered 
Brown  University,  then  under  the  presidency  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Way  land, 
who  had  been  four  years  in  office.  It  was  an  interesting  period  in  the 
history  of  the  college.  Dr.  Wayland  had  established  himself  fully  as  the 
undisputed  and  admired  head.  The  standard  of  scholarship  had  been 
raised,  and  the  influences  to  which  the  young  undergraduate  was  sub- 
jected were  healthful  and  quickening.  The  faculty  was  not  large,  but  it 
included  honored  names.  Dr.  Wayland  himself,  then  thirty-six  years 
old,  was  an  inspiring  teacher.  The  polished  Goddard  was  senior  pro- 
fessor. Other  professors  during  Mr.  Lincoln's  undergraduate  residence 
were  Elton,  Caswell,  Peck,  Chace,  Gammell,  and  Hackett,  all  names 
revered  by  the  sons  of  Brown. 

Immediately  after  graduation  in  1836  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  tutor 
in  Columbian  College,  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  where  he  remained  during 
the  academic  year  1836-37.  In  the  autumn  of  1837  he  entered  the 
Baptist  Theological  Institution  at  Newton,  Mass.,  where  he  remained 
two  years.  In  1839  he  was  elected  tutor  in  Greek  in  Brown  University, 
and  held  this  office  two  years.  In  the  autumn  of  1841  he  went  abroad 


C12  APPENDIX. 

for  study,  in  the  company  of  the  late  Professor  H.  B.  Hackett,  afterwards 
well  known  on  both  sides  of  the  sea  as  a  learned  and  skillful  interpreter 
of  the  New  Testament. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  absent  from  America  three  years,  spending  this  time 
to  great  permanent  advantage  in  the  German  universities,  in  travel,  and 
in  residence  and  study  in  several  foreign  capitals.  It  was  a  period  of 
rare  and  high  enjoyment  to  him.  It  meant  much  to  him  and  to  those 
whose  good  fortune  it  was  to  enjoy  his  instruction  in  after  years.  To 
this  period  he  always  referred  gratefully  as  a  happy  time,  filled  with 
joyous  memories  of  men  whom  he  loved  and  honored  as  friends  and  as 
teachers,  and  abounding  in  influences  derived  from  nature,  from  science, 
and  from  art,  which  had  proved  to  be  fructifying  in  his  intellectual  life. 
To  study  abroad  means  a  great  deal  now  to  an  intelligent  young  Amer- 
ican. In  those  days  it  was  a  rare  privilege  given  to  but  few,  and 
opening  to  them  opportunities  which,  in  contrast  with  those  then  existing 
at  home,  were  even  more  strikingly  superior  than  they  would  appear  to- 
day. 

The  first  year  of  foreign  residence,  1841-42,  he  spent  at  Halle,  as 
a  student  of  theology  and  philology.  He  heard  Tholuck  and  Julius 
Miiller  in  theology,  Gesenius  in  Hebrew,  Bernhardy  in  classical  philo- 
logy. He  lived  in  the  family  of  Tholuck,  who  in  July  and  August, 

1842,  made  him  his  traveling  companion  in  a  vacation  excursion  through 
Switzerland  and  northern  Italy.     Tholuck,  in  his  diary  written  at  this 
time,   in    a    part  printed  by  his  biographer  Witte,   says  of   the  young 
Lincoln,  "  0  how  I  love  that  nervous,  humorous,  intelligent  boy !  "     In 
later  years  he  once  said  that  of  all  the  Americans  he  had  ever  met  he 
loved  John  Lincoln  the  most.     The  love  which  he  felt,  his  pupil  gave  to 
him  also.     When  he  finally  devoted  himself   to  philology,  it  caused  a 
moment  of  sorrow  to  Tholuck,  who  had  hoped  that  he  would  become  a 
theologian. 

His  second  academic  year  abroad  was  spent  in  Berlin,  where  he 
studied  church  history  under  Neander,  Old  Testament  history  under 
Hengstenberg,  and  classical  philology  under  Boeckh.  After  traveling 
during  the  next  summer  vacation,  he  went  to  Geneva  in  the  autumn  of 

1843.  Here  he  spent  some  time  in  the  study  of  French.     The  winter  of 
1843-44  and  a  large  part  of  the  following  spring  he  spent   in  Rome, 
studying  classical  literature  and  archaeology.     He  enjoyed  the  privilege 
of  attending  the  weekly  meetings  of  the  Archaeological  Society  on  the 
Capitoline  Hill.     Among  his  fellow  students  were  Grote,  the  historian  of 
Greece,   Preller,   celebrated  for  his   researches  in  classical  mythology, 
George  Washington  Greene,  then  American  consul  in  Rome,  Theodore 
Parker,  William  M.  Hunt,  Francis  Parkman,  and  other  eminent  schol- 
ars.    In  May  he  went  to  Paris  for  a  stay  of  a  few  weeks,  and  thence  to 
London,  on  his  way  home  to  the  United  States. 


APPENDIX.  613 

He  became  assistant  professor  of  the  Latin  language  and  literature 
in  Brown  University  in  the  autumn  of  1844,  and  at  the  close  of  his  first 
year  of  service  was  promoted  to  the  full  professorship.  This  office  he 
held  through  the  rest  of  his  life.  From  the  year  1859  to  1867,  being 
released  from  some  of  his  teaching  in  the  college,  he  gave  a  large  part  of 
his  time  to  conducting  a  school  for  young  women  in  Providence.  In 
1867  he  retired  from  this  school,  in  which  he  had  won  the  gratitude  and 
esteem  of  his  many  pupils.  From  1867  to  1877  he  added  to  his  work  in 
Latin  five  hours  a  week  of  instruction  in  German.  He  was  the  senior 
professor  in  the  college  faculty  from  the  time  of  the  retirement  of  Pro- 
fessor Chace  in  1872.  He  carried  for  the  greater  part  of  his  professorial 
life  the  burden  of  many  hours  of  instruction.  In  the  autumn  of  1889  he 
first  reduced  his  hours  from  twelve  in  the  week  to  six.  In  the  academic 
year  1889-90  an  unusual  honor  was  accorded  him  in  the  establishment  of 
"  The  John  Larkin  Lincoln  Fund."  This  fund  of  over  $100,000  was 
raised  in  that  year  among  the  sons  and  friends  of  Brown  University,  in 
sums  ranging  from  one  dollar  to  ten  thousand,  in  order  to  do  honor  to 
his  name  while  he  was  yet  living,  to  secure  to  him  a  full  salary  for  the 
rest  of  his  life,  whether  he  should  teach  or  not,  and  to  attach  his  name 
forever  to  the  college  through  a  permanent  endowment.  Another  testi- 
monial of  his  pupils  may  be  mentioned  here.  In  1886,  at  the  annual 
Commencement  dinner,  in  honor  of  the  semi-centennial  of  his  graduation, 
his  portrait,  painted  by  Hubert  Herkomer,  R.  A.,  was  presented  to  the 
college  by  the  alumni.  The  enthusiasm  shown  on  this  occasion  spoke 
eloquently  of  the  love  which  he  had  won  in  his  years  of  devoted  and 
faithful  teaching.  Four  years  later,  at  the  Commencement  dinner  of 
1890,  when  the  fund  in  his  name  was  completed,  Sayles  Memorial  Hall 
again  rang  with  even  greater  applause,  when  he,  though  feeble  with 
illness,  appeared  for  a  few  minutes  among  his  brother  alumni. 

Twice  in  the  course  of  his  long  term  of  service  as  professor  he  rested 
completely  from  academic  work  during  term  time.  He  was  ill  in  1857, 
and  for  this  reason  went  abroad  and  was  absent  from  his  duties  six 
months.  On  this  occasion  he  visited  Athens,  and  found  in  that  classic 
city  much  to  gratify  the  tastes  which  he  so  long  had  been  cultivating. 
Thirty  years  later,  in  1887,  he  went  abroad  again  and  remained  a  year, 
revisiting  many  of  the  places  endeared  to  him  by  his  residence  in  them 
in  his  earlier  years.  He  spent  his  time  largely  in  Germany  and  in  Italy. 
The  new  archaeological  discoveries  in  Rome  gave  him  great  delight,  espe- 
cially as  he  had  the  privilege  of  studying  them  in  the  company  of  his 
friend,  Professor  Lanciani,  director  of  the  Museo  Urbano,  under  whose 
direction  much  of  the  wbrk  of  discovery  had  been  accomplished.  Though 
absent  from  his  lecture-room  at  Brown,  he  did  not  forget  the  needs  of 
the  college.  He  performed  at  that  time  one  service  which  deserves  ever 
to  be  held  in  grateful  remembrance.  He  selected  and  purchased,  as  the 


614  APPENDIX. 

agent  of  Mr.  H.  K.  Porter,  of  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  a  graduate  of  Brown 
(Class  of  18(iO),  a  large  number  of  excellent  plaster  casts  of  celebrated 
works  of  Greek  and  Roman  art.  These  gifts  of  Mr.  Porter  were  largely 
the  germ  of  the  Museum  of  Classical  Archaeology  of  Brown  University, 
and  have  proved  to  be  of  great  use  in  illustrating  the  history  of  Greece 
and  of  Rome.  Professor  Lincoln  had  been  abroad  once  before,  in  the 
time  between  1857  and  1887.  In  1878  he  employed  the  long  summer 
vacation  in  a  visit  to  England,  Holland,  Belgium,  Germany,  Switzerland, 
and  France.  For  about  half  of  this  journey  he  was  accompanied  by  one 
of  his  younger  colleagues,  a  man  of  little  more  than  half  his  age,  but 
Professor  Lincoln's  enthusiasm  and  vigor  were  so  indomitable  that  he 
often  wearied  his  junior  by  his  long  and  late-protracted  walks  in  his 
eager  and  unjaded  search  for  sights  to  delight  the  eye  and  to  instruct 
the  mind.  At  Rugby  and  at  Cambridge  in  England,  at  Leyden  in  Hol- 
land, he  enjoyed  the  opportunity  of  visiting  renowned  seats  of  learning, 
and  of  recalling  the  great  names  connected  with  them.  In  Germany  he 
attended  the  university  lectures  of  Biicheler  at  Bonn,  of  Johann  Schmidt, 
Vahlen  and  Lepsius  at  Berlin,  of  Zarncke  and  Striimpell  at  Leipzig. 
He  also  called  on  Ernst  Curtius  at  Berlin,  whom  he  found  exulting  in 
the  results  of  the  excavations  at  Olympia,  and  on  Georg  Curtius  at  Leip- 
zig, and  was  ready,  on  slight  provocation,  to  begin  a  new  career  as 
student.  He  visited  Halle,  and  while  greatly  saddened  by  the  recent 
death  of  Tholuck,  the  friend  and  teacher  of  earlier  days,  he  revived 
delightfully  the  memory  of  the  past  by  a  call  on  the  Frau  Rathinn, 
Tholuck's  widow,  who  gave  him  her  warmest  welcome.  The  galleries 
and  museums  of  Cambridge,  London,  Amsterdam,  the  Hague,  Berlin, 
Dresden,  and  Paris  gave  him  unending  pleasure  and  refreshment.  A 
trip  up  the  Rhine  and  a  short  rest  among  the  Alps  of  Switzerland  satis- 
fied his  fondness  for  the  genial  and  picturesque  in  nature. 

Amid  the  pressure  of  his  many  hours  of  pedagogical  work  Professor 
Lincoln  found  the  time  for  the  preparation  of  three  editions  of  the  clas- 
sics. The  first  of  these  was  an  edition  of  selections  from  Livy,  published 
in  1847.  It  was  revised  in  1871.  The  second  was  an  edition  of  the 
works  of  Horace,  first  published  in  1851,  and  afterwards  revised  in 
1882.  In  1882  he  also  published  an  edition  of  selections  from  Ovid, 
with  a  vocabulary.  In  1884  he  revised  this  work.  All  these  editions 
were  thoroughly  annotated,  and  those  of  Horace  and  of  Ovid  contained 
interesting  lives  of  these  authors.  In  general,  while  they  possessed  dis- 
tinct pedagogic  value,  and  were  clear  and  discriminating  on  the  philo- 
logical side,  they  had  a  literary  merit  considerably  above  the  ordinary 
school  or  college  edition  of  a  classical  author.  For  the  drier  side  of  his 
science  Professor  Lincoln  had  less  taste  than  for  the  study  of  the  literary 
and  spiritual  characteristics  of  the  authors  and  the  periods  to  which  he 
gave  his  attention.  He  was  fond  of  literary  occupation,  and  he  wrote 


APPP:NDIX.  615 

articles  of  interest  for  the  "  North  American  Review,"  the  "  Christian 
Review,"  the  "  Baptist  Quarterly,"  and  the  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  besides 
frequent  contributions  to  the  daily  and  weekly  newspapers,  and  lectures 
and  addresses  which  he  delivered  before  literary  societies  and  other 
organizations.  For  a  number  of  years  he  wrote  the  necrology  of  the 
alumni  of  Brown  University  for  the  "  Providence  Journal."  Some  of  his 
later  articles  in  the  "  Baptist  Quarterly "  deserve  especial  mention,  as 
being  the  fruit  of  his  riper  years.  These  appeared  at  intervals  from 
1869  to  1877.  The  subjects  were  Goethe's  Faust,  Gladstone's  Juventus 
Mundi,  The  Platonic  Myths,  The  Relation  of  Plato's  Philosophy  to 
Christian  Truth,  Life  and  Teachings  of  Sophocles.  Some  of  these,  at 
least,  were  prepared  at  first  to  be  read  before  the  "  Friday  Evening 
Club,"  a  company  of  the  choicest  men  of  his  age  in  Providence.  His 
"  Discourse  Commemorative  of  the  Life  and  Services  of  Rev.  Alexis 
Caswell,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  delivered  before  the  Alumni  of  Brown  Univer- 
sity, June  19,  1877,"  was  a  touching  and  eloquent  tribute  of  affection  to 
one  whom  he  had  known  intimately  as  his  teacher,  fellow  professor,  and 
president  of  the  college. 

His  work  in  connection  with  the  church  was  earnest,  long-continued, 
and  conspicuous.  Early  in  life  he  possessed  a  warm  faith  which,  as  he 
often  devoutly  said,  he  "  thanked  God  that  he  had  never  lost."  And 
although  he  turned  from  the  distinctively  theological  and  ecclesiastical 
career  to  which  at  one  time  he  seemed  to  be  destined,  he  was  as  eminently 
and  characteristically  a  Christian  minister  as  if  he  had  upon  him  the 
vows  of  ordination.  For  twenty-one  years  he  was  superintendent  of  the 
Sunday-school  of  the  First  Baptist  Church  in  Providence,  and  conducted 
a  weekly  meeting  during  a  large  part  of  that  time  for  the  teachers  and 
the  young  people  connected  with  the  school.  He  was  a  deacon  of  that 
church  for  many  years,  president  of  the  Charitable  Baptist  Society  (the 
corporation  of  the  church),  president  of  the  Rhode  Island  Baptist  Sunday- 
school  Convention,  and  prominently  associated  with  nearly  all  public 
religious  and  philanthropic  movements  in  Providence.  Besides  all  this, 
he  was  ever  ready  to  speak  the  affectionate  and  inspiring  word  of  advice 
or  comfort  to  any  one  in  the  parish,  in  the  college,  or  elsewhere,  concern- 
ing his  highest  spiritual  concerns.  His  spirit,  which  was  so  marked  by 
native  shrewdness,  wise  discrimination,  and  tender  sympathy,  found  no- 
where else  a  more  spontaneous  and  characteristic  expression  than  in  the 
varied  phases  of  his  religious  life  in  his  family,  in  the  college,  in  the 
church,  and  in  all  his  converse  with  his  fellow-men. 

Honors  came  to  him,  of  course,  as  he  gathered  strength  with  the  in- 
creasing years.  In  1859  Brown  University  conferred  on  him  the  hon- 
orary degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws.  Twice  he  might  have  become  a  college 
president  —  in  the  first  instance,  of  Colby  University;  in  the  second,  of 
Vassar  College.  But  though  he  considered  the  opportunities  thus  offered, 


616  APPENDIX. 

he  finally  chose  rather  to  serve  to  the  end  the  college  which  had  the 
homage  of  his  heart  from  first  to  last.  Could  the  right  moment  have 
come  in  season,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  alumni  of  his  Alma  Mater 
whom  he  served  with  so  unswerving  a  loyalty  would  gladly  have  seen 
him  placed  in  the  presidency  there.  But  better  than  all  the  rewards  of 
office  was  the  glowing  love  which  his  pupils  felt  and  manifested  towards 
him.  Mention  has  been  made  of  the  portrait  and  of  the  fund  which 
were  so  tangible  tokens  of  this  love.  But  all  the  way  along  and  every- 
where that  a  son  of  Brown  could  be  found,  the  name  of  Professor  Lincoln 
was  uttered  with  affection  and  veneration.  It  is  not  the  lot  of  many 
instructors  of  youth  to  win  such  reverence. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  an  excellent  instructor.  He  had  a  native  gift 
for  interpretation  which  forms  so  important  a  part  of  the  work  of  the 
philologist.  His  knowledge  of  classical  literature,  in  Greek  as  well  as  in 
Latin,  was  large  and  constantly  growing.  He  always  liked  to  have  an 
author  by  him,  even  on  his  journeys.  He  felt  the  accuracy  and  the  state- 
liness  of  his  favorite  Latin  authors  and  strove  to  make  his  pupils  appre- 
ciate these  characteristics.  With  his  love  for  accurate  scholarship,  and 
with  his  quick,  mercurial  temperament,  he  often  must  have  been  tortured 
by  the  work  of  slovens  and  dullards  in  his  classes.  In  his  earlier  years 
of  teaching,  as  he  used  himself  to  remark,  he  was  sometimes  quick  and 
caustic  with  such  youth.  But  he  became  more  patient  and  enduring  as 
the  years  went  on,  and  though  he  would  let  no  error  pass  unconnected,  he 
was  content  with  rebuking  carelessness  with  some  dry,  humorous  criti- 
cism, the  sting  of  which  did  not  rankle  in  the  mind  of  the  one  rebuked, 
though  he  might  be  careful  to  avoid  a  repetition  of  it.  He  was  inde- 
fatigable as  a  corrector  of  tasks.  When  he  was  teaching  sections  of  all 
four  classes  in  college,  his  table  often  was  piled  with  books  of  exercises 
in  Latin  composition,  which  he  corrected  with  unusual  care,  erasing, 
substituting  the  right  expression  for  the  wrong  one,  and  gladdening  the 
hearts  of  the  deserving  with  his  appended  "  Bene  "  or  "  Optime."  No 
one  could  be  quicker  than  he  to  appreciate  a  pupil's  merits.  He  never 
failed  to  approve  a  task  well  done,  with  a  "  That 's  well  rendered,  sir," 
or  with  a  merry  applauding  laugh,  if  some  witty  turn  made  it  clear  that 
the  pupil  had  caught  the  spirit  of  the  author,  in  addition  to  divining  his 
meaning.  He  was  quick  to  feel  and  to  point  out  the  deeper  philosophical 
ethical  lesson  which  underlay  the  text  that  he  might  be  reading  with  his 
classes.  To  him  the  classics  were  the  "  Humanities,"  and  he  taught  them 
in  that  spirit,  and  used  them  as  means  to  develop  in  his  students  a  noble 
and  refined  ideal  of  manhood. 

He  entered  with  genuine  sympathy  into  the  undergraduate  life  of  the 
college.  He  enjoyed  seeing  a  good  game  of  base-ball,  and  helped  the 
athletic  students  with  his  advice  and  his  purse,  too.  He  rejoiced  in 
all  the  victories  of  the  college  nine.  He  found  delight  in  the  perform- 


APPENDIX.  617 

ances  of  the  musical  societies,  however  crude.  The  earnest  religious 
men  found  in  him  their  best  friend  and  counselor.  For  some  years 
the  annual  reception  of  the  college  Christian  association  was  held,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  at  his  house.  He  seemed  in  some  way  to  have  the 
secret  of  perpetual  youth.  There  was  no  one  younger  in  heart  than  he 
to  the  last. 

His  home  was  the  centre  of  much  generous  and  genial  hospitality.  In 
turn  he  was  one  of  the  best  of  guests,  for  he  had  an  exhaustless  fund  of 
good  spirits,  his  conversation  was  entertaining  and  interesting,  and  in  all 
his  demeanor  he  was  kindness  and  courtesy  itself.  Men  and  women,  old 
and  young,  were  attracted  to  him. 

He  had  a  gift  for  public  speech.  All  that  he  said  was  marked  by  an 
exquisite  taste  in  respect  to  thought  and  to  diction.  He  had  a  poetic  side 
to  his  mind,  which,  though  it  never  sought  expression  in  the  poet's  me- 
dium of  verse,  yet  revealed  itself  in  the  sentiments  to  which  he  gave  utter- 
ance as  occasion  prompted.  This  was  as  true  of  his  unpremeditated  speech 
as  of  his  more  formal  public  appearances.  It  showed  itself  in  the  edifying 
words  which  he  might  be  led  to  speak  in  some  ordinary  prayer-meeting, 
in  an  after-dinner  speech,  or  on  some  more  select  occasion.  The  power 
of  sentiment  was  strong  with  him,  and  yet  he  was  practical  and  wise  in 
his  speech,  as  well  as  in  his  judgments  and  actions.  In  all  the  inner 
affairs  of  the  college,  whether  in  matters  of  routine  or  of  policy,  his  advice 
was  sound  and  influential,  and  had  great  weight  in  determining  the  action 
of  the  faculty. 

In  person  he  was  spare  and  rather  short  of  stature.  He  was  cast  in 
the  delicate  mould  of  a  gentleman,  but  his  constitution  was  endowed  with 
great  powers  of  endurance.  For  over  fifty  years  he  was  an  assiduous 
toiler,  teaching,  studying,  writing,  serving  in  various  official  ways  the 
interests  of  his  college,  his  school,  his  church,  the  community  in  which  he 
lived,  or  giving  liberally  his  time,  strength,  and  sympathy  to  all  sorts  of 
persons  who  resorted  to  him  for  help.  He  walked  quickly  and  with  a 
light,  springing  step  until  he  passed  into  his  seventy-third  year.  In  the 
summer  of  1889  he  overtaxed  himself  in  his  long  vacation  rambles,  and 
soon  after  his  return  to  college  he  began  to  exhibit  a  lack  of  strength 
unusual  for  him.  The  academic  year  that  followed  was  one  of  great 
anxiety  to  his  family  and  friends.  He  felt  his  weakness,  and  though  he 
maintained  his  cheerfulness,  he  was  greatly  at  a  loss  to  know  how  to 
accommodate  himself  to  his  changed  condition.  He  continued  to  teach 
six  hours  a  week  when  not  too  feeble.  In  the  following  summer  the 
healthful  air  of  the  White  Mountains  gave  him  back  much  of  his  former 
vigor,  and  he  returned  to  college  duties  with  the  old  spirit  upon  him. 

Professor  Lincoln  was  no  pedant,  but  he  loved  to  lace  his  speech  with 
a  bit  of  sonorous  Latin.  A  few  words  from  his  favorite  Agricola  of 
Tacitus  can  hardly  be  amiss  here  in  summing  up  his  personal  character- 


CIS  APPENDIX. 

istics:  "Quod  si  habitum  quoque  eius  posteri  noscere  velint,  decentior 
.  iu:nn  sublimior  f  uit ;  nihil  inetus  in  vultu  ;  gratia  oris  supererat.  Bonum 
viriini  facile  crederes,  magnum  libenter.  .  .  .  quippe  et  vera  bona,  quae 
in  virtutibus  sita  Mint,  impleverat,  et  .  .  .  quid  aliud  astruere  fortuna 
poterat  'i  "  Truly  his  colleagues  and  disciples  may  continue  the  ancient 
eulogy  and  apostrophize  their  master  with  "  Admiratione  te  potius  quam 
temporalibus  laudibus,  et,  si  natura  suppeditet,  aemulatione  decoremus. 
.  .  .  Forma  mentis  aeterna,  quam  tenere  et  exprimere  non  per  alienam 
materiam  et  artem,  sed  tuis  ipse  moribus  possis." 

LINCOLN   GENEALOGY. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  six  Lincolns  came  to  Hing- 
liam,  Mass.,  from  Hingham  and  Wymondham,  England :  — 
Thomas  Lincoln,  weaver,  before  1635. 
Thomas  Lincoln,  cooper,  1636,  or  possibly  1633. 
Thomas  Lincoln,  Jr.,  miller,  1636. 
Samuel  Lincoln. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  husbandman,  and  his  brother 
STEPHEN  Lincoln,  husbandman,  1638. 
Professor  Lincoln  was  a  descendant  of 

(i.)  STEPHEN  Lincoln,  husbandman,  who  came  from  Windham 
(Wymondham)  with  his  wife  and  son,  STEPHEN,  and  died  in  1658. 

(n.)   Stephen  2d  married  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Matthew  Hawke,  in 
1660,  and  died  in  1692.     There  were  three  sons  :  — 
Stephen  3d,  1665-1717,  a  bachelor. 
DAVID,  1668-1714. 
James,  1681-1731. 

(in.)  DAVID  married  Margaret  Lincoln,  probably  the  daughter  of 
Benjamin  Lincoln,  who  was  the  son  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  cooper.  This 
Benjamin  Lincoln  was  great-grandfather  of  General  Benjamin  Lincoln 
of  the  Revolution.  David  and  Margaret  had  children :  Elizabeth,  Mar- 
garet, DAVID  2d,  Matthew,  Isaac  (Harvard  College,  1722),  and  Job. 

(iv.)  DAVID  2d,  1694-1756,  was  married  three  times:   In  1718  to 
Lydia,   daughter  of  John   Beal ;  she  died  in  1719.     In  1721  to  Leah, 
daughter  of  Lazarus  Beal ;  she  died  in  1723,  leaving  one  daughter,  Mar- 
garet.    In  1734  to  Mary,  daughter  of  James  Hersey  :  to  them  were  born 
several  children,  including  DAVID,  1734-1814,  and  Nathan,  1738-1809. 
(v.)  DAVID  3d  married  Elizabeth  Fearing,  1736-1804.  of  Wareham, 
in  1760,  and  had  children  :  — 
Elizabeth,  1761-1797. 
Lydia,  1763-1855. 
David,  1765,  died  in  infancy. 
David,  4th,  1767-1825. 
Hawke*,  1769-1829. 


APPENDIX.  619 

Noah,  1772-1856. 

Christiana,  1774-1850. 

Perez,  1777-1811. 

ENSIGN,  1779-1832. 

(vi.)  ENSIGN  married,  in  1808,  Sophia  Oliver  Larkin,  1786-1821,  the 
youngest  but  two  of  seventeen  children  of  Ebenezer  and  Mary  (Oliver) 
Larkin.  Samuel  Larkin,  father  of  Ebenezer,  came  from  England  about 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  six  of  his  sons,  including  Eben- 
ezer, were  in  the  battle  of  June  17,  1775,  and  their  houses  were  burned 
by  the  British  soldiers. 

ENSIGN  Lincoln  had  nine  children :  — 

Thomas  Oliver,  1809-1877. 

William  Cowper,  1810-1832. 

Sophia,  1812-1848. 

Joshua,  1815- 

JOHN  LARKIN,  1817-1891. 

Henry  Ensign,  1818- 

Heman,  1820-21. 

Heman,  1821-1887. 

ENSIGN  LINCOLN'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

Ensign  Lincoln,  the  father  of  Professor  Lincoln,  was  the  youngest  of 
the  nine  children  of  David  Lincoln,  of  Hingham,  Mass.  At  the  age  of 
nineteen,  in  the  year  1798,  he  began  an  autobiography,  or  "  Private 
Memoirs."  These  "  Memoirs,"  after  some  "  Cursory  Kemarks  "  on  the 
necessity  of  "  cherishing  gracious  exercises  and  opposing  the  vicious  pro- 
pensities of  nature,"  contain  "  A  Retrospective  View  of  Childhood  and 
Youth,"  and  a  record  of  his  early  manhood  to  the  year  1805.  These 
"Memoirs"  are  interesting  both  as  illustrating  New  England  life  and 
thought  emerging  from  formalism,  and  before  it  had  felt  the  slavery  of 
modern  "  liberalism  ;  "  and  also  as  throwing  light  on  the  sturdy  character 
of  Ensign  Lincoln,  which  influenced  in  so  great  measure  Professor  Lin- 
coln's whole  life.  Ensign  Lincoln,  like  his  son,  had  very  early  religious 
impressions.  He  was  blessed  with  a  good  mother,  of  whom  he  says, 
"  From  her  I  was  early  taught  the  duty  which  I  owed  [to  my  Creator,  and 
in  very  early  life  was  led  to  ruminate  on  the  happy  condition  of  those 
who  were  found  in  the  exercise  of  religion."  He  also  records  that  he 
"  almost  envied  the  happy  condition  of  a  young  man,"  whose  story  his 
father  related,  and  with  whom  David  Lincoln  had  become  acquainted 
when  they  were  both  in  the  Revolutionary  army  in  sight  of  the  enemy ; 
"  who,  by  his  pious  disposition,  was  accustomed  to  frequent  visitations  to 
the  field,  to  adore  and  praise  his  Maker,  and  seek  his  divine  direction. 
I  felt  solicitous  to  emulate  his  worthy  example,  and  frequently  attempted 
it  when  alone.  The  duty  of  prayer  I  had  been  taught  in  early  childhood, 


620  APPENDIX. 

and  the  practice  of  it  became  familiar.  I  found  it  convenient  to  dis- 
continue the  forms  which  had  been  learnt,  that  I  might  express  particular 
subjects."  In  describing  his  childhood  he  says  :  "  On  a  certain  occasion, 
being  in  company  with  a  person  who  was  addicted  to  profanity,  I  concluded 
I  should  initiate  myself  in  his  esteem  if  I  were  to  imitate  his  example ; 
I  accordingly  made  some  small  attempts,  which,  however,  sounded  so 
awkwardly  to  myself,  that  I  was  convinced  it  was  never  a  gift  of  nature, 
but  an  acquired  art.  From  this  time  I  was  ever  studious  to  avoid  every- 
tliing  which  bore  the  most  distant  appearance  of  the  kind."  Beside 
this  innate  distaste  for  profanity  or  vulgarity,  he  had  in  boyhood  another 
trait  which  was  also  characteristic  of  his  son.  In  describing  himself  at 
the  age  of  thirteen,  at  the  Dover  Academy,  he  says :  "  The  confidence 
which  had  marked  my  early  life  began  to  give  place  to  timidity,  which  I 
found  impossible  to  overcome.  I  was  not  furnished  with  sufficient  cour- 
age for  public  speaking."  At  the  age  of  fourteen  he  sought  a  position 
as  an  apprentice  in  the  trade  of  printing,  but  "  it  was,  however,  a  serious 
difficulty  in  my  mind,  as  it  was  not  customary  in  this  business  to  be  pro- 
vided with  cloathing,  whether  I  should  be  capable  of  furnishing  myself, 
free  from  an  incumbrance  to  my  parents,  seeing  a  longer  pecuniary  de- 
pendence from  that  quarter  was  not  my  wish.  I  was,  notwithstanding, 
encouraged  to  pursue  my  intention,  having  received  the  promise  of  one 
year's  supply,  hoping  after  that  period  I  might  by  some  means  be  able  to 
provide  for  myself."  In  carrying  out  this  intention  he  worked  at  night, 
earning  as  much  as  "  six  or  eight  cents  of  an  evening "  "  to  procure 
cloathing,"  and  he  records,  "  I  am  singularly  pleased  in  not  having  had 
occasion  to  receive  pecuniary  aid  from  my  parents,  not  even  the  first 
year's  supply  which  I  had  been  tendered."  In  the  seven  years  of  his 
apprenticeship  he  earned  $287.08  in  money,  besides  $112  worth  of  shoes 
and  small  clothes  which  were  provided  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of 
agreement,  and  he  had  assets  in  hand  an  acknowledgment  of  $20  loaned 
to  his  brother,  half  a  church  pew  valued  at  $20,  and  $10  in  good  solid 
cash,  so  that  "  cloathes,"  books,  and  pocket  expenses  had  amounted  to 
nearly  $50  each  year.  May  20,  1793,  he  began  his  apprenticeship  with 
Manning  &  Loring  at  Boston,  then  just  beginning  business,  and  the  first 
book  printed  was  "  the  celebrated  treatise  of  bishop  Butler's  Analogy  of 
Religion."  He  had  been  brought  up  a  Unitarian,  but  on  coming  to 
Boston  he  boarded  with  a  Baptist  family  and  "  attended  the  ministration 
of  a  Baptist  preacher,  whose  manner  of  treating  subjects  was  different 
from  that  to  which  I  had  been  accustomed,  and  whose  word  was  with 
power.  So  great,  however,  was  my  aversion  to  the  denomination  that  I 
sparingly  expressed  my  approbation  ;  and  in  my  first  letter  directed  to  my 
friends  I  communicated  my  resolution  not  to  attend  upon  his  ministration. 
But  it  was  indeed  true,  that  had  a  person  inculcated  sentiments  from  a  new 
Bible,  they  would  not  have  appeared  more  strange  and  foreign  to  my 


APPENDIX.  621 

former  run  of  thought.1  For  although  I  had  ever  maintained  some  con- 
siderable respect  for  religion,  yet  I  had  never  before  considered  that  '  the 
carnal  mind  is  enmity  against  God.'  I  have  no  recollection  that  the 
necessity  of  regeneration  ever  occurred  to  my  mind  till  after  I  attended 
Mr.  Baldwin's  preaching.  I  was  then  convinced  that  Christians  had 
experienced  something  to  which  the  world  at  large  were  strangers. 
Though  I  had  often  repeated  the  words  of  Christ  to  Nicodemus,  yet  I 
never  attached  any  idea  to  them.  My  attention  to  religion  began  to  be 
somewhat  talked  of  among  companions,  and  my  attachment  to  the  Baptists 
was  reprobated  among  friends.  My  preceptor  at  the  academy  seriously 
advised  me  to  avoid  much  intercourse  with  the  "flying  Babtists"  but  I 
had  seen  so  much  of  sincerity  and  religion  among  them,  that,  as  is  the 
common  conduct  with  mankind,  I  had  now  adopted  the  opposite  extreme, 
conceiving  them  to  be  the  only  real  Christians." 

In  many  respects  Ensign  Lincoln's  characteristics  found  repetition  in 
his  son.  Of  his  conversion  he  says :  "  While  walking  one  evening  in  the 
street  and  meditating  with  anxiety  on  my  state  as  a  sinner,  and  my 
future  prospects,  a  new  and  pleasing  sensation  was  excited  in  my  mind. 
The  world  looked  like  nothing,  and  religion  indescribably  lovely,  and 
there  seemed  to  be  a  revolution  in  my  mind,  leaving  my  heart  indis- 
solubly  attached  to  godliness." 

He  had  a  great  capacity  for  hard  work :  "  During  this  winter  I 
probably  exerted  myself  in  work  to  the  disadvantage  of  my  health.  It 
was  not  uncommon  to  rise  at  2,  3,  and  4  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  in 
the  course  of  the  day  to  perform  double,  and  sometimes  considerably 
more,  than  what  was  allotted  as  a  day's  work." 

He  exerted  a  personal  influence  for  good  upon  his  companions : 
"  Eight  apprentices  now  constituted  our  family,  at  all  times  to  conduct 
prudently  with  whom  I  experienced  it  exceedingly  difficult.  Many 
obstacles  presented  to  obstruct  the  plan  of  prayer  which  I  had  introduced, 
and  it  was  consequently  relinquished." 

He  was  in  early  life  unduly  introspective.  Saturday  night,  May  19, 
1799,  just  before  his  baptism,  he  writes  :  "  I  had  many  melancholy 
reflections ;  my  sleep  for  some  time  departed  ;  my  thousand  wrong  tem- 
pers of  mind  seemed  to  be  presented  to  view  ;  I  was  fearful  that  as  the 
time  for  my  making  a  public  profession  of  religion  approximated,  my  views 
of  its  importance  and  solemnity  decreased.  I  at  last  reflected  whether  I 
should  not  rather  confide  in  God  than  indulge  my  uneasy  sensations,  and 
whether  it  were  not  a  subject  of  joy  to  have  an  opportunity  of  professing 
Christ ;  upon  which  I  experienced  greater  serenity  and  calmly  reposed 
myself  in  slumber." 

1  It  may  be  noted,  however,  that  a  boy  of  nineteen  who  instinctively  spells 
"  Bible  "  with  a  large  "  B,"  and  "  bishop  "  with  a  small  "  b,"  and  "  denomination  " 
with  a  small  "  d,"  would  appear  well  adapted  to  become  a  Baptist; 


622  APPENDIX. 

He  had  great  longings  for  friendship  and  was  a  devoted  friend.  His 
cousin,  Deacon  Heman  Lincoln,  was  his  lifelong  friend ;  they  were 
born  on  the  same  day,  received  infant  haptism  together,  "  and  through 
the  mistake  of  an  aged  minister  their  names  were  exchanged,  on  infor- 
mation of  which  the  mistake  was  corrected ; "  they  were  apprentices  in 
Boston  at  the  same  time ;  related  their  experience  at  the  same  church 
meeting,  and  together  received  Scripture  haptism  upon  profession  of 
faith. 

He  was  most  scrupulously  exact  and  honest.  He  abandoned  an  inten- 
tion of  entering  "  mercantile  "  life  through  fear  that  in  business  competi- 
tion he  might  be  tempted  to  "  pronounce  some  article  good  which  was 
really  indifferent." 

He  frequently  meditated  upon  the  possible  nearness  of  death.  "  But 
it  is  not,  in  itself,  any  great  object  to  live  long,  nor  unhappiness  to  die 
soon  ;  the  great  point  is  to  die  well." 

When  Ensign  Lincoln's  end  drew  near,  and  he  was  told  that  his  time 
had  come,  he  only  said,  "  Well,  if  I  had  lived  to  be  as  old  as  Methusaleh, 
I  suppose  there  never  could  have  been  a  better  tune  to  die  than  now." 

ENSIGN  LINCOLN'S  LETTER  TO  HIS  CHILDREN. 

On  August  15,  1821,  a  little  more  than  three  months  after  the  death 
of  his  young  wife,  Ensign  Lincoln  wrote  a  letter  to  his  seven  children. 
This  contained  "  a  brief  memoir  of  their  departed  mother,"  as  a  legacy 
to  them  because  she  had  been  called  from  them  by  death  before  they  had 
"  arrived  at  mature  years  particularly  to  notice  her  conduct,  appreciate 
her  character,  and  enjoy  the  benefit  of  her  instruction."  It  is  "  affec- 
tionately inscribed  "  to  them  "  with  the  prayer  that  they  may  inherit  her 
piety  and  virtues,  meet  her  peaceful  end,  and  hereafter  mingle  in  her 
society  in  the  skies."  Doubtless  this  letter  had  a  marked  effect  upon  the 
boyhood  of  Professor  Lincoln,  as  indeed  may  be  traced  throughout  his 
student  diary,  as  when  he  longs  for  "  growth  in  character "  and  fitness 
"  for  the  society  of  heaven."  In  this  letter  Ensign  Lincoln  tells  his 
children  of  their  mother's  graces  and  virtues,  and  of  their  first  meeting, 
and  of  their  thirteen  years  of  happy  wedded  life.  "  Her  mind  was 
stored  with  knowledge  of  the  most  useful  kind,  and  her  manners  were 
formed  to  interest  those  with  whom  she  had  intercourse,  to  impart  pleas- 
ure to  her  friends.  Her  countenance  was  open  and  engaging,  her  com- 
plexion fair,  her  movements  moderate  and  graceful,  and  her  mind  calm, 
sedate,  and  cheerful.  My  acquaintance  with  her  commenced  when  she 
was  twenty  years  of  age.  I  sought  an  interview  with  her,  which  was 
enjoyed  first  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Oliver  Holden,  at  a  meeting  of  singers, 
in  which  pleasing  gift  Sophia  much  excelled  ;  and  again  at  the  house  of 
my  friend  Mr.  Thomas  Edmands.  Her  musical  powers,  cheerful  dis- 
course, and  engagedness  in  religion  apparent  on  this  occasion  much 


APPENDIX.  623 

interested  my  mind,  and  fixed  the  wish  and  intention  to  seek  in  her  a 
companion  for  life. 

"  We  were  married  on  12th  of  May,  1808,  at  which  time  I  was  29 
years  of  age,  and  Sophia  22. 

"  On  entering  the  family  state,  it  was  our  desire  and  aim  to  establish 
and  pursue  a  mode  of  life  becoming  a  Christian  family  ;  and  our  visits 
and  associations  were  formed  with  a  regard  to  religious  enjoyment. 

"  The  succeeding  years  of  life  passed  on  smoothly.  We  never  experi- 
enced the  least  interruption  of  cordiality  and  friendship.  The  worship 
of  the  Lord  was  regularly  enjoyed  in  our  domestic  circle,  and  we  cheer- 
fully repaired  in  company  to  the  house  of  God. 

"  At  the  time  of  our  marriage  I  was  a  member  of  a  Baptist  church  and 
she  of  a  Congregational  church,  but  it  was  my  intention  to  avoid  naming 
the  subject  of  baptism  to  her.  However,  in  about  six  months  she  ex- 
pressed her  own  conviction  that  the  baptism  of  believers  by  immersion 
was  the  only  baptism  authorized  in  the  gospel,  and  stated  her  wish  to 
unite  with  the  Baptist  church.  This  was  a  circumstance  pleasing  to  me, 
as  I  knew  it  resulted  from  her  own  conviction  of  duty,  and  would  better 
ensure  family  unity.  She  accordingly  wrote  to  the  church  in  Charles- 
town,  stating  the  change  in  her  sentiments  on  this  subject,  and  received 
an  affectionate  dismission  to  the  Third  Baptist  Church  in  Boston,  and 
was  baptized  in  December,  1808,  by  Rev.  Mr.  Blood. 

"  In  1810  the  Lord  in  his  Providence  called  me  to  public  labors  in 
the  Christian  ministry.  In  these  services  I  was  often  absent  from  my 
family  on  the  Lord's  day,  which  greatly  increased  Sophia's  labors  and 
anxieties  in  taking  charge  of  our  rising  family.  For  a  time  she  felt 
much  tried  in  relation  to  attending  family  worship  in  my  absence ;  but 
appeared  to  obtain  peace  of  mind  on  forming  a  conclusion  not  to  omit 
the  service. 

"  She  had  a  great  reverence  for  the  Lord's  day,  and  was  peculiarly 
solicitous  that  the  children  committed  to  her  charge  should  sacredly  ob- 
serve it,  by  abstaining  from  all  employments  inconsistent  with  its  solem- 
nity, by  perusing  the  sacred  Scriptures,  and  learning  the  great  truths  of 
the  Christian  religion.  These  anxieties  greatly  multiplied  her  cares  and 
labors  on  that  day,  and  probably  lessened  her  personal  enjoyment  of  its 
sacred  hours." 

In  her  last  sickness  "  the  children  occupied  her  thoughts  most  deeply. 
She  was  always  an  anxious  mother,  and  was  industriously  and  persever- 
ingly  engaged  for  their  good.  She  expressed  much  solicitude  for  them, 
remarking  that  she  had  never  been  desirous  for  them  to  be  great,  but 
only  that  they  might  be  good.  Her  mind  was  calm  and  happy  in  the 
prospect  of  dissolution.  At  favorable  intervals  of  ease  she  was  enabled 
to  converse  affectionately  and  faithfully  with  each  of  the  family,  and 
earnestly  recommended  to  them  that  religion  on  which  her  own  hopes 


624  APPENDIX. 

rested.  She  particularly  urged  the  children  to  ask  of  the  Lord  a  new 
heart  to  prepare  them  for  heaven.  On  the  morning  of  the  day  of  her 
death  she  awoke  and  said  she  was  going,  but  that  death  had  no  terrors 
to  her.  I  engaged  in  prayer  with  her  for  the  last  time,  and  endeavored 
to  commend  her  to  the  Lord,  in  whom  she  reposed  her  trust,  while  I 
cherished  the  consoling  hope  of  again  uniting  in  her  society  in  the  man- 
sions of  the  blessed.  I  sat  by  her  in  company  with  our  sisters  and 
children  during  the  forenoon  ;  but  said  little  to  her,  as  I  thought  it 
unkind  to  disturb  an  expiring  saint  with  numerous  questions  when  it 
may  be  presumed  the  soul  is  committing  itself  to  the  blessed  Redeemer, 
who  has  promised  his  people  to  be  with  them  through  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  and  be  a  light  about  them." 

"  Thus,  my  dear  children,  lived,  and  thus  happily  died,  your  dear  and 
honored  mother,  whose  life  was  devoted  to  your  welfare,  and  whose  last 
breath  ascended  in  prayer  for  your  immortal  interests. 

"  As  your  affectionate  mother  is  no  more,  and  as  the  time  of  my  depar- 
ture is  uncertain,  let  me  most  earnestly  press  on  your  minds  the  following 
counsels  :  — 

"  1.  The  son  of  a  king  was  once  entreated  to  perform  no  mean  action, 
from  the  consideration  of  his  honorable  parents.  So  if  any  one  endeav- 
ors to  entice  you  to  sin,  let  this  consideration  deter  you  from  it,  —  I  am 
the  child  of  a  pious  mother,  who  is  now  in  the  heavenly  world. 

"  2.  Be  diligent  to  read,  with  frequency  and  care,  the  pages  of  the 
sacred  Scriptures.  Remember  that  your  departed  mother  loved  the 
sacred  Scriptures ;  and  though  she  studied  them  much,  yet  she  said  on 
her  dying  pillow,  *  I  wish  I  had  read  the  Scriptures  more.' 

"  3.  Pay  a  sacred  regard  to  the  Lord's  day.  The  Almighty  appointed 
a  seventh  part  of  time  for  religious  use  immediately  after  the  creation  ; 
he  has  in  all  ages  blessed  the  observance  of  it. 

"  4.  Never  be  absent  from  the  public  worship,  unless  detained  by  indis- 
pensable necessity ;  and  attend  where  the  gospel  is  preached  with  the 
greatest  f aithfulness  and  fervency. 

"  5.  If  sinners  entice  you  to  mingle  in  their  society,  consent  not.  Your 
character  will  always  be  judged  to  correspond  with  your  company. 
Call  to  mind  that  your  dear  departed  mother,  when  she  supposed  herself 
to  be  summoned  by  death,  expressed  her  deep  solicitude  that  you  might 
be  guarded  from  evil  associates. 

"  6.  As  you  grow  up  into  life  be  industriously  engaged  in  some  useful 
and  honorable  calling.  It  is  disgraceful  as  well  as  sinful  to  live  to  no 
purpose ;  and  industrious  habits  are  a  safeguard  from  innumerable  dan- 
gers which  beset  the  path  of  the  young. 

"  7.  Cultivate  kind  and  fraternal  affections  towards  each  other.  It  was 
a  wise  admonition  of  Joseph  to  his  brethren,  f  See  that  ye  fall  not  out 
by  the  way.'  Thus  may  you  assist  and  encourage  each  other  on  the 
journey  of  life. 


APPENDIX.  625 

"  Finally,  May  the  blessed  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit  be  granted 
to  renew  your  hearts,  sanctify  your  affections,  enable  you  to  love  the 
Saviour  and  keep  his  commandments.  In  this  way  only  can  you  hope 
happily  to  pass  through  life,  and  meet  your  departed  mother  in  heaven. 
And  consider  what  joy  it  may  impart  to  her,  to  welcome  you  one  after 
another,  to  the  felicities  and  joys  of  the  upper  world.  There  may  the 
parents  who  watched  and  prayed  for  your  good,  and  you,  the  children  of 
their  affections,  meet  in  one  assembly,  unitedly  to  admire  redeeming 
grace  and  dying  love,  in  a  blessed  immortality." 


INDEX. 


ACTON,  LORD,  his  opinion  of  Von  Ranke, 

580. 
Adams,  John,  example  of    vigorous  old 

age,  535. 
Adams,  John  Q.,  in  United  States  House 

of    Representatives,    39;    example  of 

vigorous  old  age,  535. 
Address  of   Prof.  A.  Harkness,  Ph.  D., 

LL.  D.,  607. 

Address  of  Prof.  Geo.  P.  Fisher,  LL.  D.,  1. 
JEschylus,   competition   with   Sophocles, 

361,   362;    influence   upon    Sophocles, 

363,  367. 
jEmilianus  (Scipio),  Froude's   comments 

on  his  murder,  468. 

Agassiz,  J.  Louis  R.,  visited  by  Prof.  Lin- 
coln at  the  Aar  glacier,  65 ;  spoken  of 

by  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  123. 
Agricola  (Gnseus  Julius)  his  age  at  mar- 
riage, 382 ;  marital  relations,  384 ;  fa- 
ther-in-law of   Tacitus,  404 ;    Tacitus' 

comments    on,  420,    617 ;    Domitian's 

feelings  towards,  424. 
Agrippa    (Marcus  Vipsanius),  his  public 

works  and  buildings,  213,  214. 
Alexander  the  Great,  instance  of  youth- 
ful maturity,  537. 
Alger,  Israel,  early   instructor   of    Prof. 

Lincoln,  23. 

Ammon,  measurement  of  Rome,  212. 
Ammon,  Chr.  Friedrich  von,  sermon  by, 

60. 

Amsterdam,  614. 
Anaxagoras,  read  by  Lucretius,  320 ;  his 

argument  from  design,  345. 
Andrews,   Pres.     E.  Benj.,    LL.  D.,  his 

views  as  to  classical  studies  influenced 

by  Prof.  Lincoln,  601. 
Anecdotes  and  incidents  concerning  Pro- 
fessor Lincoln,  or  told  by  him :  — 

Benefit  Street  School,  597. 

British  postage,  81. 

Brown  University  in  the  fifties,  590. 

Carving  turkey,  58. 

Christmas  Eve,  51. 

Class-room  incidents,  588-590. 

Collection  book,  595. 

College  prayers,  587. 

Commons  Hall,  586. 

Continental  vs.  English  pronunciation, 
589. 


Declining  years,  604. 

De  Senectute,  595. 

De  Wette's  doubts,  53. 

Dinner  party,  54. 

Early  rising,  587. 

Financial  shortage  in  European  excur- 
sion (1843),  102. 

First  attempt  at  teaching,  34. 

First  Latin  lesson,  23. 

First  sermon,  47. 

First  Sunday-school  class,  29. 

Fishing  adventures,  599,  600. 

Gen.  Grant's  rejoinder,  588. 

German  trout  fishing,  603. 

Greek  hotel,  142. 

Hazing  that  might  have  happened,  585. 

How  Latin  can  be  taught,  601. 

How  should  I  like  to  be  called  Line.  ? 
590. 

Herkomer  portrait,  600. 

Interest  in  college  sports,  605. 

Interest  in  outdoor  sports,  605. 

Last  days,  606. 

Latin  epistle,  589. 

Latin  poem,  4,  23. 

Latin  School  medal,  24. 

Lincoln  Fund,  604. 

Literal  translation,  588. 

Livy's  Preface,  589. 

Locked-in  class,  587. 

Mock  programmes,  588. 

Modern  Latin,  604. 

Mrs.  Tholuck's  bird,  603. 

Old  Commons  Hall,  586. 

Olshausen's  conversion,  53. 

Origin  of  German  Baptist  church,  80. 

Outdoor  life  in  the  long  vacations,  599, 
600. 

"Ponies," 589,  590. 

Procession  of  St.  Francis,  136. 

Professor  Lincoln  as  a  church  member, 
594 ;  as  a  father,  598. 

Reasons  for  not  giving  up  Freshman 
class,  604. 

Railway  adventure  in  Germany,  603. 

Rebellion  against  "  parts,"  585. 

Religion  not  "  goodyness,"  588. 

Riding  a  professor,  588. 

Recollections  of  Neander,  89,  596. 

Sarcophagi  wash-tubs,  142. 

Slip,  588. 


628 


INDEX. 


Snow-storm  Sunday,  592. 

Spurgeou's  chapel  on  fire  and  stoned, 

US. 

Stolen  sermon,  133. 
Tholuek's  anecdote,  595. 
Tholuck's  narrow  escapes,  65,  66. 
Tholuck's  opinion  of  Goethe,  51. 
Tholuck's  opinion  of  Prof.  Lincoln,  612. 
Tholuck's  serenade,  55. 
Tholuck's  tour,  612. 
Unconsecrated  chapel,  587. 
United  States'  senate  and  house,  37. 
Unknown  penitent,  145. 
Up  aud  down  Mt.  Washington,  600. 
Visit  to  Mrs.  Tholuck,  602. 
"  Yankee  Doodle  "  without  words,  55. 
Youthful  tutor,  586. 

Angell,  Pres.  Jas.  B.,  LL.  D.,  his  opin- 
ion of  Prof.  Lincoln  as  a  teacher,  9 ;  and 
of  his  character,  16. 

Antoninus  Pius,  relations  to  Marcus  Au- 
relius,  491, 402,  495. 

A 11 11  nuns  (Marcus),  his  stepdaughter 
Claudia,  390;  relations  with  Octavius, 
395 ;  monarchical  tendency,  417 ;  op- 
posed by  Cicero,  480,  481 ;  Shake- 
speare's delineation,  475. 

Apuleius,  Lucius,  statues  in  honor  of  his 
lectures,  308. 

Archaeology,  Prof.  Lincoln  a  student  of, 
at  Korne,  7,  109-111, 129, 130, 612, 613 ; 
at  Athens,  139,  141-143;  Brown  Uni- 
versity Museum  of  Classical  Archaeol- 
ogy, 614. 

Argos,  visited  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  143. 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  his  "  Reign  of  Law,"  in 
connection  with  Lucretius'  theory,  346, 
348. 

Aristo  of  Ceos,  imitated  by  Cicero,  525. 

Aristophanes,  on  the  character  of  Sopho- 
cles, 362. 

Aristotle,  contrasted  with  Plato,  233  ;  his 
opinion  of  Anaxagoras,  345 ;  influence 
on  church  fathers,  432 ;  his  teachings 
contradicted  by  Galileo,  445 ;  and  un- 
congenial to  Aurelius,  495. 

Arnold,  Rev.  A.  N.  ("A.  N.  A."),  class- 
mate of  Prof.  Lincoln  in  Sophomore 
year,  and  held  prayer-meetings  with 
him,  30. 

Arnold,  Samuel  G.,  594. 

Arnold,  Thomas,  D.  D.  (of  Rugby),  his 
opinion  of  Caesar,  471  ;  Prof.  Lincoln 
compared  with,  602. 

Arrian,  influenced  in  his  journey  by  his- 
toric associations,  312. 

Arruntius,  Tacjtus'  opinion  of,  420. 

Art,  Prof.  Lincoln's  appreciation  of,  in 
Berlin,  59,  64 ;  in  Genoa,  103,  104 ;  in 
Rome,  107,  109,  130;  in  Paris,  125, 
126 ;  in  Athens,  139. 

Ashburton,  Lord,  82. 

Athens,  visited  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  138  et 
seq.,  613. 


AtHcus  (Titus  Pomp.),  relations  with 
Cicero,  466,  467,  476,  479,  525. 

Augustine,  St.,  his  experience  compared 
with  Goethe's  "Faust,"  183,  184; 
quoted  in  connection  with  Gladstone's 
"  Juventus  Muudi,"206,  207. 

Augustus  (Caius  Julius  Caesar  Octavia- 
ii us).  (Octavius),  condition  of  Rome  in 
his  reign,  210,  231,  297  ;  as  a  traveler, 
297,  298 ;  wore  home-made  togas,  381 ; 
bis  laws  as  to  marriages,  383,  388 ;  as 
to  feasts,  383 ;  as  to  women  at  public 
shows,  388 ;  twice  divorced,  390 ;  his 
dissolute  daughter,  391, 392 ;  influenced 
by  Livia,  394,  395,  by  Terentia,  396 ; 
banishes  Ovid,  396 ;  follows  in  steps  of 
Julius  Caesar,  417,  418 ;  Livy,  and  not 
Tacitus  his  historian,  4l9;  republican 
sentiments  in  bis  reign,  416,  477. 

Aurelian,  his  walls  of  Rome,  211. 

Aurelius  (Marcus),  an  example  of  good 
side  of  absolutism,  407;  bis  life  and 
character,  484  et  seq. ;  similarity  of  his 
belief  with  Seneca's.  521. 

Aussig,  63. 

Bacon,  Lord  Francis,  imitates  Plato,  239 ; 
adopts  Lucretius'  atomic  theory,  318; 
accepts  argument  from  design,  346; 
compared  with  Galileo,  455;  example 
of  vigorous  old  age,  534. 

Baias,  111. 

Baldwin,  Rev.  Thomas,  D.  D.,  his  influ- 
ence on  Ensign  Lincoln,  621. 

Bancroft,  George,  example  of  vigorous 
old  age,  535 ;  his  letter  to  Von  Ranke, 
582. 

Baptism,  of  Prof.  Lincoln,  24,  27,  30; 
"  baptism "  of  Prince  of  Wales,  54  ; 
mode  of,  80,623;  perversion  of,  126; 
criticism  on  Dean  Stanley's  views  of, 
456-460 ;  James  Clerk  Maxwell's  allu- 
sion to,  566 ;  Ensign  Lincoln's,  621,  622 ; 
his  wife's,  623. 

Baptist  denomination  and  doctrines :  — 
Ensign  Lincoln's  connection  with,  3,  24, 

620,  621,  623. 
Prof.  Lincoln's  connection  with,  17, 65 ; 

his  defense  of,  456  et  seq.,  596. 
In  Germany,  68-70,  80. 
Spurgeon's  statement  of,  119. 
Prof.  Maxwell's  opinion  of,  566. 

Baptist  missions  in  Germany  and  Den- 
mark, 68-71, 80. 

"  Baptist  Quarterly,"  Prof.  Lincoln's  writ- 
ings published  in,  151,  185,  232,  259, 
356,  615. 

Baring,  Sir  Francis,  met  by  Prof.  Lincoln, 
124. 

Barnes,  Joshua,  on  Homeric  theology, 
204. 

Baronius,  Cardinal,  quoted  by  Galileo, 
440. 

Bautzen,  63. 


INDEX. 


629 


Beck,  Prof.  Daniel,  instructor  of  Von 
Banke,  572 ;  his  system  of  instruction 
adopted  by  Von  Ranke,  577. 

Becker,  Prof.  Wilhelm  A.,  work  on  Ar- 
chaeology, 110 ;  on  Plato  (note),  242. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Henry  Ward,  schoolmate 
of  Prof.  Lincoln,  4,  611. 

Bekker,  Prof.  Immanuel,  88. 

Bellarmin,  Cardinal,  connection  with  trial 
of  Galileo,  435,  442,  443,  447,  451. 

Bellegarde,  101. 

Benton,  Col.  Thomas  H.,  personal  appear- 
ance in  Senate,  39. 

Bentley,  Richard,  on  Lucretius,  318,  326. 

Berne,  Tholuck's  sickness  at,  65. 

Berlin,  Prof.  Lincoln's  studies  at,  5,  6, 
25,  596,  612 ;  revisited,  614 ;  description 
of,  85-91 ;  letters  from,  143,  144 ;  rem- 
iniscences of,  568 ;  Von  Ranke's  profes- 
sorship in,  574,  576,  581,  582. 

Bernhardy,  Prof.  Gottfried,  Prof.  Lin- 
coln's studies  with,  5,  25,  79,  612 ;  at 
dinner  party,  54,  55 ;  at  a  Gesellschaft, 
57 ;  his  works,  79. 

Bible  quotations  and  references,  19,  27, 
33,  46,  49,  50,  111,  119,  125,  129,  137, 
139,  140,  145,  156,  161,  182,  184,  197, 
198,  205,  261,  265,  267,  268,  269,  271, 
330, 333, 334, 398, 400, 457, 459, 502, 503, 
504, 508, 592,  530,  541,  606, 621 ;  a  cure 
to  doubt,  49 ;  Wegscheider's  treat- 
ment of,  54 ;  Prof.  Lincoln's  study  of 
German,  77 ;  Gesenius'  jokes  on,  81 ; 
Italian  children's  ignorance  of,  136; 
Prologue  of  Faust  modeled  on  Job, 
155  ;  Faust  and  first  chapter  of  John, 
161 ;  Goethe's  use  of  Jude,  181 ;  his 
failure  to  reach  level  of,  183 ;  Old  Tes- 
tament compared  with  Homer,  203, 
204 ;  New  Testament  relation  to  pagan- 
ism, 207;  Plato  and  the  Bible,  259, 
261,  264,  268,  270;  Lucretius'  theory 
compared  with,  330,  333,  334 ;  Sopho- 
cles compared  with,  370 ;  N.  T.  state- 
ments confirmed  by  history,  400,  401 ; 
Galileo  on  interpretation  of,  437  ;  Dean 
Stanley's  citations,  457  et  seq.  ;  Froude's 
misapplied  quotations,  470  ;  Medita- 
tions of  Aurelius  compared  with,  499, 
502 ;  Ensign  Lincoln's  regard  for,  623, 
624. 

Bibliotheca  Sacra,  Prof.  Lincoln's  writ- 
ings for,  11,  592,  615. 

Bigelow,  Dr.  H.  J.,  schoolmate  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  611. 

Bischofswerda,  63. 

Blanc,  Prof.  Ludwig  Gottfried,  57. 

Blood,  Rev.  Caleb,  baptized  Prof.  Lin- 
coln's mother,  623. 

Boeckh,  Prof.  August,  Prof.  Lincoln's 
studies  with,  6,  25, 88,  612, 569 ;  doubt- 
ful recognition  by,  146;  his  estimate 
of  Roman  population,  219 ;  associated 
with  Von  Ranke,  575. 


Boise,  Prof.  James  R.,  associated  with 
Prof.  Lincoln  in  B.  U.,  3. 

Boissier,  Gaston,  his  criticism  of  Momm- 
sen,  469. 

Bologne,  124. 

Boniface  IV.,  his  consecration  of  Pan- 
theon, 215. 

Bopp,  Prof.  Franz,  88,  575. 

Boscaglia,  Prof.,  his  opposition  to  Galileo, 
436,  437. 

Boston,  Prof.  Lincoln's  birthplace  and 
home,  3,  22,  30,  113,  611 ;  Ensign  Lin- 
coln's removal  to,  620. 

Boston  Latin  School,  Prof.  Lincoln's  stud- 
ies at,  4, 23,  24, 611 ;  Prof.  Lincoln  pray- 
ing there  in  boyhood,  44. 

Boston  High  School,  Prof.  Lincoln's  stud- 
ies at,  4,  23,  24. 

Bottiger,  Karl  Aug.,  110. 

Boyle,  Robert,  adopts  Lucretius'  atomic 
theory,  318. 

Bradley,  Judge  C.  S.,  schoolmate  of 
Prof.  Lincoln,  611. 

Bright,  John,  123. 

Britons  (ancient),  414. 

Brougham,  Lord,  534 ;  example  of  vigor- 
ous old  age,  535. 

Brown,  Nicholas,  594. 

Brown,  Rev.  T.  Edwin,  D.  D.,  his  commu- 
nication on  Prof.  Lincoln  as  a  church- 
member,  594. 

Brown,  Rev.  W.  L.  ("  W.  L.  B."),  class- 
mate of  Prof.  Lincoln,  and  held  prayer- 
meetings  with  him,  30 ;  connection  with 
rebellion  against  "  parts,"  586. 

Brown  University :  — 

Prof.  Lincoln's  connection  with,  2, 4, 27- 
33,  585-591,  596,  597,  600-302,  606- 
610,  611-617 ;  his  room  in,  24. 
Personal  nature  of  its  instruction,  15. 
Antedates  revolutionary  war,  21. 
Prof.  Lincoln's  papers  used  as  lectures, 
208,  337,  402. 

Bruno,  Giordano,  accepted  Lucretius' 
atomic  theory,  318 ;  Prof.  Tyndall's 
opinion  of,  344 ;  and  Romish  Church, 
431. 

"  Brunonian,"  extract  from,  590. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  example  of  vig- 
orous old  age,  535 ;  quotation  from, 
543. 

Biicheler,  Prof.  Franz,  614. 

Buffon,  George  Louis  Leclerc,  on  dura- 
tion of  human  life,  529. 

Bunsen,  Christian  C.  J.,  110 ;  estimate 
of  Roman  population,  218,  222. 

Bunyan,  John,  his  "Pilgrim's  Progress," 
170. 

Burke,  Edmund,  example  of  vigorous  age, 
534. 

Burrage,  Rev.  Henry  S.,  Tholuck's  anec- 
dote of  Prof.  Lincoln,  595. 

Burrill,  Charles,  sexton  First  Baptist 
Church,  593. 


630 


INDEX. 


Butler,  Bishop  Joseph,  style  compared 
with  Plato,  263;  argument  compared 
with  Lucretius,  330 ;  Ensign  Lincoln 
helped  print  hia  "  Analogy,"  620. 

Butler,  Rev.  Henry  Montague,  D.  D.,  con- 
temporary with  Prof.  Maxwell,  551. 

Byron,  Lord,  quoted  and  referred  to  in 
connection  with  Geneva  and  vicinity, 
93-98;  represented  in  "Faust,"  179; 
quoted,  101,  330,  602. 

Caccini,  Peter,  assails  Galileo,  438,  439. 

Ctesar,  Julius,  quick  journey  of,  298 ;  con- 
temporary of  Lucretius,  316 ;  Tacitus' 
picture  of,  417, 424  ;  Fronde's  "  Caesar," 
464-483;  and  stoicism,  495,  496. 

Caligula,  C.  Caesar,  407,  494. 

Calvin,  John,  99. 

Campbell,  Prof.  Lewis,  author  of  Prof. 
Maxwell's  biography,  544. 

Cambridge  (Eng.),  614. 

Canina,  Luigi,  110. 

Capitolinus,  Julius,  biographer  of  Aure- 
lius,  484,  491. 

Carueades,  effect  of  his  philosophy  on  Ro- 
mans, 515,  516. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  "Faust,"  177. 

Cass,  Gov.  Lewis,  speech  to  Brown  stu- 
dents, 29. 

Cassius  (Avidius),  relations  with  Anrelius, 
493,  495,  502. 

Castelli,  Prof.  Benedetto,  friend  of  Gal- 
ileo, 436,  439,  440. 

Caswell,  Rev.  Alexis,  LL.  D.,  instructor 
of  Prof.  I  /nit-ill  11.  3,  611 ;  sympathy 
with  students,  5, 15, 25 ;  Prof.  Lincoln's 
Discourse  on  his  Services,  592,  615. 

Cato  (Major),  concerning  women,  378, 
384 ;  contrasted  with  Aurelius,  495 ; 
concerning  augury,  510;  philosophy, 
515 ;  example  of  old  age,  525,  526. 

Cato  (Uticensis),  typical  Stoic,  495,  526. 

Cephissia,  140. 

Chace,  Prof.  George  I.,  LL.  D.,  instructor 
of  Prof.  Lincoln,  3,  611. 

Chace  (Chase,  Rev.  Ira  ?),  59. 

Chalmers,  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas,  452. 

Chapin,  Rev.  Stephen,  D.  D.,  President 
of  Columbian  College,  34. 

Charvati,  143. 

Charybdis,  modern  appearance  of,  134, 
138. 

Chatham,  Lord,  his  old  age,  533,  535. 

Chillon,  94,  95. 

"  Christian  Review,"  Prof.  Lincoln's  writ- 
ings for,  592,  615. 

Christians  (early),  Tacitus'  reference  to, 
413, 501 ;  Aurelius'  opinion  of,  500,  501. 

Cicero,  Marcus  Tullius,  Prof.  Lincoln's 
paper  on  "  Old  Age,"  14, 524-543 ;  cost 
of  his  house,  216  ;  as  to  ronvivium,  223  ; 
his  "  De  Republica,"  294;  on  custom 
officers,  301 ;  his  travels,  308,  309;  on 
art  and  history,  312,  313,  409;  con- 


temporary of  Lucretius,  316,  317,  326; 
his  story  of  Sophocles,  377  ;  his  letters, 
464,  466,  474,  476,  479,  480,  482; 
Fronde's  treatment  of,  477-483 ;  Mid- 
dleton's  and  Mommsen's  treatment  of, 
477;  his  patriotism,  480-482;  death, 
482,483;  his  opinion  of  Cato,  496;  on 
religion  and  politics,  511,  516,  517;  on 
Scaevola,  520 ;  quoted,  610. 

Civita  Vecchia,  127,  131,  132. 

Clarens,  94,  96. 

Classical  studies,  Prof.  Lincoln's  views 
as  to,  11,  12,  100,  357,  402,  524,  573, 
601,  602,  609,  616 ;  in  Germany,  91-93 ; 
in  Italy,  105,  106,  108,  111 ;  in  connec- 
tion with  Plato,  233,  234. 

Claudius,  M.  Aurelius,  cost  of  his  house, 
216;  marital  relations,  390,  393,  403, 
422. 

Claudius  (Appins),  533. 

Clay,  Henry,  appearance  in  Senate,  38. 

Cobden,  Richard,  123. 

Colby  University,  Prof.  Lincoln  called  to, 
615. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  quoted,  75. 

Collonges,  100. 

Cologny,  98. 

Columbian  College,  Prof.  Lincoln's  con- 
nection with,  5,  25,  34-44,  611. 

Columella,  L.  Jun.  Mod.,  advice  as  to 
villas,  299. 

Commodus,  L.  Aurelius,  paternity  of, 
494 ;  vicious  nature  of,  495. 

Commons  Hall  at  Brown  University,  586. 

Conant's  Translation,  81. 

Conybeare,  Rev.  John,  310. 

Copenhagen,  69. 

Copernicus,  his  views  held  by  Galileo, 
432,  433,  445  ;  condemned  by  Romish 
Church,  446-448,  451. 

Cosmo  II.,  pupil  and  patron  of  Galileo, 
434,  435. 

Cousin,  Victor,  student  of  Plato,  233. 

Cowper,  William,  313. 

Crassus,  L.  Luc.,  cost  of  his  house,  217. 

Crassus,  M.  Lie.,  417,  473. 

Creech,  Thomas,  318. 

Crocker,  Rev.  Nathan  B.,  S.  T.  D.,  586. 

Crcesius,  Gerardus,  his  "Homerus  He- 
brseus,"  203. 

Cumse,  111. 

Curtis,  George  William,  his  editorial  on 
Prof.  Lincoln,  606. 

Curtius,  Prof.  Ernst,  614. 

Curtius,  Prof.  Georg,  614. 

Dallas,  George  M.,  123. 
Dante  (Alighieri),  181. 
Darwin,  Charles,  similarity  to  Lucretius. 

334 ;  his  theory,  343,  346. 
D'Aubigne1,  J.  H.  Merle,  99. 
Davidson,  Dr.  Samuel,  54,  55. 
Delbruck,     Gottlieb    (curator    of    Univ. 

Halle),  55. 


INDEX. 


631 


Democritus,  influence  on  Lucretius,  317, 

320,  322,  326,  339,  345. 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  as  to  insanity  of 

Lucretius,  315. 

Deuschle,  Dr.  J.,  on  Platonic  myths,  236. 
Devens,    Judge    Charles,    classmate    of 

Prof.  Lincoln,  4,  611. 
De  Wette,  Prof.  Wilhelm  M.   L.,  Tho- 

luck's  opinion  of,  53. 
Dickson,  Thomas  G.  (B.  U.  '51),  Prof. 

Lincoln's   friendship  with   at   Athens, 

138,  141. 
Dijon,  127. 

Dillaway,  C.  K.,  instructor  of  Prof.  Lin- 
coln, 4,  24. 
Dindorf,  W.,  362. 
Diodati,  98. 
Diogenes,  516. 
Dion  Cassius,  390. 
Dixon,  Hon.  Nathan  F.,  student  at  Brown 

University,  585. 
Dixwell,  Epes  Sargent,  instructor  of  Prof. 

Lincoln,  4,  24. 
Domitian,    Tacitus'  record   of    reign   of, 

404-406,    411,    423,   424;     contrasted 

with  Aurelius,  491,  492. 
Donatus,    *<Elius,    record    of    Lucretius' 

death,  315. 

Dresden,  59,  63,  64, 614. 
Dronke,  Gustav,  on  Sophocles,  363,  364, 

365,  370,  375,  376. 
Drusus,  M.  Liv.,  412,  477. 
Dryden,  John,  318. 
Dryander,  Rev.  Hermann,  pastor  at  Halle, 

57. 

Diintzer,  Heinrich,  on  Faust,  154,  176. 
Dyer,  Thomas,  218,  222. 

Eckermann,  John  Peter,  his  Goethe's 
"Conversations,"  152,  171,  176,  179, 
182. 

Edmunds,  Thomas,  friend  of  Ensign  Lin- 
coln, 622. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  263. 

Eleusis,  141. 

Elliott,  Lemuel  H.,  steward  of  Brown 
Univ.,  587. 

Ellis,  Dr.  George  E.,  schoolmate  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  4,  611. 

Ellis,  Rev.  William,  111. 

Elton,  Prof.  Romeo,  instructor  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  24,  611. 

Empedocles,  his  influence  on  Lucretius, 
319,339,340. 

Encke,  Johann  Franz,  88. 

English  customs  and  manners :  fees,  67  ; 
postage  regulations,  81 ;  railways,  114  ; 
hotels,  115 ;  work  and  pleasure,  115, 
116;  want  of  reverence,  118,  122;  op- 
position to  dissenters,  118 ;  elections, 
123. 

Epictetus,  on  travel,  302 ;  influence  on  Au- 
relius, 489,  490,  496,  497 ;  not  an  idola- 
ter, 521. 


Epicurus,  influence  on  Aurelius,  320,  321, 

339. 

Epinois,  Henri  de  1',  429. 
Erdman,  Prof.  Johann  Eduard,  instructor 

of  Prof.  Lincoln  at  Halle,  5,  25,  54. 
Erfurt,  91. 

Erskine,  Thomas,  535. 
Etna,  Mt.,  134. 

Euripides,  on  old  age,  530,  571. 
Eusebius,  315,  401. 
Evarts,  William  M.,  schoolmate  of  Prof. 

Lincoln,  611. 

Faust,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper  on,  11,  13, 
19,  151-184,  615;  Tholuck's  criticism 
of,  .61. 

Federal  Street  Baptist  Church,  Boston, 
Prof.  Lincoln  baptized  there,  30. 

Femey,  98. 

First  Baptist  Church,  Providence,  Prof. 
Fisher's  address  on  Prof.  Lincoln  de- 
livered there,  1 ;  Prof.  Lincoln's  con- 
nection with,  17,  594,  615 ;  250th  anni- 
versary, 592. 

First  Baptist  Sunday-school,  Providence, 
Prof.  Lincoln's  connection  with,  17,  29, 
130,  133,  594,  615 ;  his  letter  to,  133 ; 
50th  anniversary,  592;  "Snow-storm 
Sunday,"  592. 

Fitzpatrick,  Bp.  J.  B.,  classmate  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  611. 

Fisher,  Prof.  George  P.,  LL.  D.,  his  me- 
morial address  on  Prof.  Lincoln,  1-21. 

Flourens,  Gustave,  529. 

Folkestone,  124. 

Forbes,  Prof.  James  David,  548. 

Frankfort,  152. 

Franz,  Prof.  Johann,  88. 

Frederick  William  IV.,  patron  of  letters, 
6,  86,  87,  359,  580,  583. 

French  manners  and  customs:  railway, 
124 ;  custom-house,  124 ;  worship,  126. 

Friday  Evening  Club,  Prof.  Lincoln's  pa- 
pers for,  11,  151,  185,  232,  273,  296, 
315,  356,  378,  402,  427,  484,  503,  524, 
544,  598,  615. 

Friedlander,  Prof.  Ludwig  Hermann,  54. 

Frieze,  Prof.  Henry  S.,  LL.  D.,  7. 

Fronto,  teacher  of  Aurelius,  484,  487,488. 

Froude,  James  Anthony,  Prof.  Lincoln's 
paper  on  his  "  Caesar,"  14,  464-483. 

Gaisford,  Prof.  Thomas,  235. 

Galba,  416,  418,  419,  493. 

Galileo,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper  on,  427-455. 

Gammell,  Prof.  William,  LL.  D.,  in- 
structor of  Prof.  Lincoln,  3,  24,  32,  61 1. 

Gartz,  Prof.  J.  C.,  54. 

Gassendi,  Pierre,  follows  Lucretius' 
atomic  theory,  318. 

Gebler,  Karl  von,  on  Galileo,  427-429, 447. 

Gellius,  Aulus,  317. 

Gemellus,  C.  Memmius,  319. 

Geneva,  7,  93-102,  612. 


(>;V2 


INDEX. 


Genoa,  102,  127. 

German  customs :  Christmas,  51 ;  sere- 
nading professors,  55,  89;  students' 
habits,  52,  50,  57,  59,  60,  61,  63,  76,  77, 

78,  85 ;  social  gatherings  and  supper, 
54,  57,  01,  02 ;  reading  circle,  59;  stu- 
dent tour,  59 ;  music,  02,   63,  89,  144 ; 
passports  and  police,  67,  71,  72 ;  hired 
mourners'  and  domestics'  costumes,  68 ; 
Sunday  observance,  69,  80,  145,  146; 
journeyman's  tours,  72  ;  fairs,  73  ;  beds, 
75,  77 ;    diet  and  housekeeping,    76 ; 
•women's  work,  83;     gymnasia,  91   et 
seq. ;  hotels,  003 ;  railways,  603. 

German  language,  how  to  learn  it,  73,  74  ; 
studied  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  77,  78,  81  ; 
Prof.  TyndaU's  error  in,  461,  462; 
taught  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  597,  613. 

Germanicus,  309-311,  410,  416,421,477. 

Germans,  ancient,  413. 

Gesenius,  Prof.  Fried.  Heinrich  Wilh.,  in- 
structor of  Prof.  Lincoln,  5,  25,  54,  55, 

79,  88,  612  ;  his  person  and  character, 
54-56,  80,  81 ;  his  writings,  79. 

Gherardi,  Prof.  Silvestro,  on  Galileo,  429, 

435,  447. 

Gherardini,  Bishop,  438. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  211,  212,  219,  298. 
Gifford,  William,  quotation  from  his  ver- 
sion of  Juvenal,  387. 
Giornici,  66. 
Giesebrecht,  Wilhelm  von,  pupil  of  Von 

Ranke,  578,  579. 
Gladstone,  William   E.,    Prof.   Lincoln's 

paper  on  Juventus  Mundi,  11,  185-207; 

example  of  vigorous  old  age,  538. 
Goddard,  Prof.  William  G.,  instructor  of 

Prof.  Lincoln,  611. 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von.,  Prof.  Lin- 
coin's  paper  on  "  Faust,"  11,  151-184  ; 

Tholuck's  opinion  of,  51  ;  love  of  Rome, 

108,  576 ;  admiration  of  Lucretius,  319 ; 

example  of  vigorous  old  age,  534  ;  read 

by  Von  Ranke,  570,  570. 
Goodwin,  Rev.  Daniel,  on  Prof.  Lincoln  in 

"  Brunonian,"  590. 
Gotha,  91. 
Gould,  B.  A.,  instructor  of  Prof.  Lincoln, 

4,  23,  Oil. 

Gould,  Dr.  Augustus  A.,  123. 
Gower,  Frederick  (B.  U.  1870,  non-grad.), 

558. 

Gracchus,  Tiberius,  468. 
Granger,  Rev.  James  N.,  D.  D.,  594. 
Gray,   Thomas,  influenced  by   Lucretius, 

318,  321,  354 ;  quoted  532,  533. 
Great  Eastern,  Prof.  Lincoln's  description 

of,  116. 
Greece,  Prof.  Lincoln's  visit  to,  138-143, 

613. 
Greek  manners  and  customs :    brigands, 

140;    khans,   140,     142;   hotels,   142; 

washerwomen,  142. 
Greene,  George  W.,  612. 


Gregory  XVI.,  428. 

Grimm,  Profs.  Jacob  and  William,  88. 

Grote,  George,  7,  612  ;  his  "Plato,"  242, 

275. 

Grotins,  Hugo,  426. 
Guild,  Reuben  A.,  LL.  D.,  16. 

Hackett,  Prof.  Horatio  B.,  instructor  of 
Prof.  Lincoln  and  fellow  student  in 
Germany,  52,  53,  54,  55,  58,  595,  611, 
612. 

Hadrian  (Emperor),  486,  490. 

Hague,  Rev.  William,  D.  D.,  80. 

Hague,  the,  614. 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  classmate  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  4,  611. 

Halle,  Prof.  Lincoln's  residence  and  stud- 
ies in,  5, 6,  25,  51-65,  76-84,  595,  612  ; 
revisited,  602. 

Hamburg,  visited  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  67- 
71. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  early  maturity  of, 
538. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  550. 

Hammer  and  Tongs  Society,  27. 

Hannibal,  127. 

Hardwick,  Charles,  quoted,  197. 

Harkness,  Prof.  Albert,  Ph.  D.,  LL.  D., 
remarks  on  Prof.  Lincoln,  607. 

"Harpers  Weekly,"  editorial  on  Prof. 
Lincoln,  606. 

Harris,  John,  111. 

Harvard  College,  Prof.  Lincoln  urged  to 
enter,  4,  24. 

Haupt,  Prof.  Moritz,  57,  76. 

Havercamp,  Sigebert,  318. 

Havre,  112. 

Hawtrey,  Edward  Craven,  D.  D.,  123. 

Hay,  Rev.  Prof.  Charles  Augustus,  65, 
84. 

Hazard,  Edward  H.,  his  anecdote  of 
Prof.  Lincoln.  585. 

Hegel,  Georg  Wilh.  Fr.,  88,  89, 186,  233, 
236,  248 ;  Prof.  Lincoln's  comments  on, 
90  ;  influence  on  Von  Ranke,  575. 

Heidelberg,  65 ;  Prof.  Lincoln's  visit  to, 
85. 

Hengstenberg,  Prof.  Ernst  Wilhelm,  in- 
structor of  Prof.  Lincoln,  25,  88,  612. 

Heraclitus,  320,  340. 

Herculaneum,  111. 

Herkomer,  Hubert,  his  portrait  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  18,  600,  608,  013. 

Herodotus,  188,  195. 

Herrman,  Prof.  Carl  Friedrich,  236,  237. 

Herrman,  Prof.  Johann  Gottfried,  76, 
572. 

Herrnskretschen,  63. 

Herschel,  Sir  John,  123. 

Hesiod,  530. 

Hill,  Dr.  John  H.,  140. 

Hill,  Rowland,  121. 

Hingham,  619. 

Hirt,Emil,  110. 


INDEX. 


633 


Hobbes,  Thomas,  284,  318. 

Hoffman,  Rev.  Mr.,  court  preacher  at 
Berlin,  144. 

Holbach,  Baron  d',  318. 

Holden,  Oliver,  622. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  1,  535. 

Homer,  Prof.  Lincoln's  treatment  of,  in 
connection  with  "  JuventusMundi,"  11, 
185  et  seq. ;  read  by  Roman  girls,  382  ; 
quoted,  510 ;  as  to  old  age,  530 ;  his 
old  age,  533 ;  studied  by  Von  Ranke, 
571. 

Honorius  (Emperor),  211,  212. 

Horace  (Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus),  Prof. 
Lincoln's  fondness  for,  9,  595,  599,  609 ; 
as  taught  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  9, 602, 610  ; 
his  edition  and  life  of,  10,  592,  614; 
Rome  and  Romans  in  his  time,  14, 208- 
231 ;  best  understood  in  Rome,  106 ; 
his  saying  of  himself  applied  to  Goethe, 
152  ;  as  to  influence  of  poets,  166 ;  his 
theology,  199,  200 ;  as  to  travel,  296, 
298,  299,  303,  304,  306,  308 ;  his  love 
of  the  country,  314 ;  influenced  by 
Lucretius,  317  ;  as  to  books,  319  ;  his 
"  Dis  carus,"  360,  and  "ivy  crown," 
361,  applied  to  Sophocles;  on  punish- 
ment inevitable,  367  ;  quoted,  378, 599, 
604;  on  women,  380,  382,  389;  on 
boys'  education,  381 ;  on  Jews,  400 ;  on 
Greek  culture,  514 ;  on  periods  of  life, 
528 ;  quoted  as  to  Prof.  Maxwell,  545. 

Humboldt,  Alex,  von,  Prof.  Lincoln's 
note  to,  146  ;  example  of  vigorous  old 
age,  and  honor  paid  him,  534,  542. 

Humboldt,  William  von,  Goethe's  letter 
to,  151 ;  influence  on  Von  Ranke,  575. 

Hume,  David,  191. 

Hunt,  William  M.,  at  Rome  with  Prof. 
Lincoln,  7,  612. 

Huxley,  Prof.  T.  H.,  342. 

Inquisition,  Galileo  and,  427-455. 

Interlaken,  65. 

Irving,  Washington,  535. 

Italy,  Prof.  Lincoln's  visits  to,  6,  25,  100, 
102-112,  127-138,  612,  613. 

Italian  customs  and  manners :  proces- 
sions, 104,  136 ;  beggars,  104,  128, 130, 
133,  135,  137,  138;  holy  week,  129; 
passports  and  duties,  128,  137 ;  travel 
and  brigands,  131 ;  artists,  132 ;  want 
of  education,  133,  135,  137 ;  immoral- 
ity, 137. 

Jackson,    Andrew,  visit    to    Providence, 

29. 
Jacobs,  Prof.  Chr.  Friedrich  Wilhelm,  91. 

242. 

Jahn,  Otto,  236. 
Janet,  Paul,  347. 
Jenkin,  Prof.  Fleeming,  339. 
Jerome,  315,  317. 
Jews,  classic  references  to,  400, 412. 


Johnson,  Samuel,  117. 

Josephus,  400. 

Jowett,  Prof.  B.,  his  translation  of  Plato, 

232,   242;    his    scholarship,  234-236; 

comments  on  Plato,  287,  288,  293. 
Juvenal  (Dec.  Jun.  Juvenalis),  his  power 

as  a  satirist,  224,  353,  380;    quoted, 

231 ;  as  to  travel,  303  ;  as  to  women, 

387, 389, 394, 397,  399 ;  as  to  Jews,  400  ; 

as  to  riches,  506. 
"JuventusMundi,"  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper 

on,  11,  185-207,  615. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  influenced  by  Lucre- 
tius, 325 ;  vigorous  old  age,  534. 

Keith,  Alexander,  D.  D.,  111. 

Kepler,  Johann,  relations  with  Galileo, 
432,|433  ;  prohibited  by  Romish  Church, 
451. 

King,  Rev.  Jonas,  D.  D.,  140. 

Kirk,  Rev.  Edward  Norris,  D.  D.,  ser- 
mon better  than  Spurgeon's,  125.  • 

Klaproth,  Julius  von,  197. 

Klopstock,  Friedrich  Gottlieb,  570. 

Knittlingen,  154. 

Kobner,  Rev.  Mr.,  70. 

Kostlin,  Dr.  Karl,  on  Goethe,  171,  176. 

Lachmann,  Karl,  Konr.  Fr.  Wilh.,  318. 

Laelius,  Caius,  stoic  and  friend  of  Cicero, 
519,  526. 

Lambinus,  318. 

Lamettrie,  Julien  Off  ray,  318. 

Lanciani,  Prof.  Rudolf o,  Prof.  Lincoln's 
visit  to,  613. 

Lange,  Friedrich  Albert,  on  Lucretius' 
atomic  theory,  318,  337,  338 ;  on  Bru- 
no, 344 ;  on  Christianity  and  material- 
ism, 348  ;  misquoted  by  Prof.  Tyndall, 
461-463. 

Larkin,  Sophia  Oliver,  22, 619, 622  et  seq. ; 
genealogy,  619. 

Lausanne,  96. 

Lefevre,  Charles  Shaw-  (Viscount  Ev- 
ersly),  123. 

Leghorn,  127. 

Leipsic,  Prof.  Lincoln's  visit  to,  56,  64, 
72-76. 

Leo,  Prof.  Heinrich,  instructor  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  5,  25 ;  at  party,  54,  55  ;  famil- 
iarity with  America,  58. 

Lepidus,  Marcus,  216. 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephr.,  427. 

Leverett,  F.  P.,  instructor  of  Prof.  Lin- 
coln, 123. 

Leyden,  614. 

Libri,  Julius,  433. 

Ligarius,  476. 

Lincoln,  Ensign,  as  a  father,  3,  22,  544 ; 
his  ancestry,  618,  619 ;  children,  22,  23, 
611,  618,  619 ;  his  religious  character, 
3,  611, 619-622  ;  born  in  Hingham,  619  ; 
autobiography,  619;  childhood,  619, 
620 ;  early  attempt  at  profanity,  620 ; 


634 


INDEX. 


influence  on  Professor  Lincoln,  619- 
622  ;  education  and  apprenticeship,  620, 
621 ;  independence,and  industry,  620, 
621 ;  conversion  and  baptism,  620-622 ; 
friendship  for  Deacon  Heman  Lincoln, 
622 ;  escapes  being  christened  Ileman, 


622 ;  a  lay  preacher,  3, 611,  623 ;  mar- 
riage,  622,  623;  his  wife  becomes  a 
Baptist,  623 ;  her  character,  623-325  ; 
her  death,  22,  623,  624 ;  letter  to  his 
children,  622-625  ;  his  death,  27,  622. 
Lincoln  Fund,  18,  604,  608,  613. 


Lincoln,  John  Larkin,  Chronological  Index  of  Events  in  Life  of :  — 

Birth  at  Boston,  February  23,  1817 3, 22, 611 

Childhood 22,  43 

His  mother's  death,  1821 22,  623 

Earliest  studies 22,23 

Pupil  at  Boston  Latin  School,  1826-1830,  1832 4,23,24,44,611 

Ready  for  college,  1830 23 

Pupil  at  Boston  High  School,  1831 4,  23 

Early  religious  impressions,  1826-1832  (?) 24,  43 

Conversion  and  baptism,  1832 24,  43,  27,  30 

Student  at  Brown  University,  1832-1836 4,  24,  27-33,  585,  611 

His  father's  death,  1832 3, 24,  27, 622 

Begins  to  teach  Sunday-school  class,  1833 29 

Revival  at  Brown  University,  1834 30-33 

Tutor  at  Columbian  College,  Washington,  D.  C.,  1836-1837  .    .      5,  25, 34-44, 611 

Call  to  ministry,  1832-1838 37,  42,  45  et  seq.,  107 

Student  at  Newton  Theological  Institution,  1838-1839      .     .     .    5,  25,  45-50,  611 

Tutor  of  Greek  at  Brown  University,  1839-1841 5, 25,  586, 612 

First  visit  to  Europe,  including  studies  at  Halle  and  Berlin,  and  travel,  1841- 

1844 5,  6,  25, 5'1-1 13,  595,  596,  612 

Professor  of  Latin  at  Brown  University,  1844-1891 2,  7,  613 

Married,  July  29,  1846. 

Publishes  edition  of  Livy,  1847 592,  614 

Publishes  edition  of  Horace,  1851 592,  614 

Superintendent  of  First  Baptist  Sunday-school,  1855-1876       17,  133,  592-594,  615 

Second  visit  to  Europe,  1857 15,  114-147,  613 

Receives  degree  of  LL.  D.  from  Brown  University,  1859 615 

Conducts  Benefit  Street  Young  Ladies'  School,  1859-1867      ....  15,  597,  613 

Teaches  German  at  Brown  University,  1867-1877 613 

Third  visit  to  Europe,  1878 15,  614 

Publishes  edition  of  Ovid,  1883 592,  614 

Presentation  of  Herkomer  portrait,  1886 18,  600,  608,  613 

Fourth  visit  to  Europe,  1887-1889 15,  602-604,  613 

Lincoln  $100,000  Fund,  1889 18,604,608,613 

Last  illness,  1889-1891 604-606,  617 

Death  at  Providence,  October  17,  1891 606 


Lincoln,  John  Larkin  (see  also  Anec- 
dotes) : 

Address  of  Professor  Harkness,  607. 

Ancestry,  618. 

Anecdotes  (see  under  head  of  Anec- 
dotes in  Index). 

Archaeology,  interest  in,  7,  105,  109, 
110,  111,  129,  132,  139,  143,  614. 

Art,  interest  in,  59,  64,  103,  105,  110, 
130,  132,  614. 

Baptism,  24, 27,  30. 

Baptist  views,  24,  30,  65,  70,  126,  456 
et  seq.,  596. 

Benefit  Street  School,  15,  597,  613. 

Biographical  sketch  ("  New  York  Even- 
ing Post "),  611. 

Birth,  3,  22,  611. 

Bible,  love  of,  43,  49,  52,  77,  124, 139, 
594,  600,  606. 


Brown  University,  student  at,  4,  24,  27- 
33,  585, 611 ;  tutor  at,  5, 25,  586, 612 ; 
professor  at,  2,  7,  608,  613,  617 ;  rela- 
tions with  the  faculty,  17,  617  ;  sug- 
gested as  president  of,  616. 

Childhood,  22,  43. 

Classical  studies,  views  as  to,  11,  12, 
92,  100,  106,  108,  601,  602,  609,  616. 

Classics,  editions  of,  9,  592,  614. 

Classmates  at  school.  See  Beecher, 
Bigelow,  Bradley,  Devens,  Ellis,  Ev- 
arts,  Fitzpatrick.  Hale,  Motley,  Sum- 
ner,  Torrey,  Weld. 

Colby  University,  called  to  presidency 
of,  615. 

College  catalogues  and  necrology,  writ- 
ten by  him,  16, 597,  615. 

Columbian  College,  teacher  at,  5,  25, 
34  et  seq.,  44,  611. 


INDEX. 


635 


Conversion,  24,  43,  596. 

Death,  606. 

Diary,  at  Brown  Univ.,  27-33 ;  Colum- 
bian College,  34-44  ;  Newton,  45-50  ; 
Germany,  51-66;  Europe  in  1857, 
116-133,  137-143. 

Education,  4-6,  22,  23,  25,  27  et  seq., 
40,  611;  views  as  to,  14,  37,  38,  74, 
593. 

Educator,  ability  as,  7-10,  14,  15,  598, 
602,606,  608,  6 14, -616. 

Essays,  college  and  seminary,  591. 

European  visits,  5,  6,  15,  25,  51-113, 
114-147,  595,  596,  602-604,  613,  614. 

Father,  his.      See  Ensign  Lincoln. 

Father,  character  as,  598,  605. 

First  Baptist  Church  and  Sunday- 
school,  connection  with,  17,  29,  124, 
130,  132-137,  594,  615. 

Fishing,  fondness  for,  599,  600,  603. 

Hazing  experience,  585. 

Herkomer  portrait,  18,  600,  608,  613. 

Horace,  edition  and  life  of,  10,  592, 
614. 

Humor,  8,  10,  18,  34  a  seq.,  52,  55,  77, 
102,  589,  590,  616. 

Illness,  last,  605. 

Impurity,  dislike  of,  588. 

Instructors,  his.  See  Alger,  Beck, 
Bekker,  Bernhardy,  Blanc,  Bopp, 
Caswell,  Chace,  DUlaway,  Dixwell, 
Elton,  Encke,Erdmann,  Franz,  Fried- 
lander,  Gammell,  Gesenius,  Goddard, 
Gould,  Grimm,  Hackett,  Hengsten- 
berg,  Leo,  Leverett,  Magoun,  Mar- 
heineke,  Miles,  Miiller,  Neander, 
Pernice,  Puchta,  Ranke,  Raumer, 
Reich,  Ritter,  Rodiger,  Rosenberger, 
Schelling,  Sears,  Sherwin,  Steffens, 
Tholuck,  Twesten,  Wayland,  Weg- 
scheider,  Westermann,  Witte,  Zumpt. 

Intellectual  activity,  10,  544,  597,  613, 
617. 

Letters,  to  Prof.  Fisher,  19 ;  from  Eu- 
rope, 67-113;  114-116,133-137,143- 
147  ;  from  Providence,  597. 

Liberality,  financial,  49,  598,  627  ;  reli- 
gious, 19, 104,  106,  126,  130,  144, 146. 

Lincoln  Field,  18,  605. 

Lincoln  Fund,  18,  604  605,  613. 

Livy,  edition  of,  published,  9,  592,  614. 

Memorial  Address  on,  1  et  seq. 

Ministry,  call  to,  28,  37,  42,  45  et  seq., 
107,  615. 

Mock  programmes,  opinion  of,  588. 

Modern  languages,  his  familiarity  with, 
7, 70,  73,  74,  78,  100,  110,  111,  124, 
462,  612,  613. 

Mother,  his,  544,  619,  611,  622  et  seq. 

Music,  love  of,  55,  59,  63,  82,  86,  101, 
126,  144,  605,  606,  617. 

Napping,  habit  of,  597. 

Natural  scenery,  love  of,  93,  94,  96,  97, 
99,  101,  128,  138,  140,  141,  600,  605. 


Near-sightedness,  599. 

Old  age,  604. 

Outdoor  sports,  interest  in,  18, 605, 616. 

Ovid,  edition  and  life  of,  110,  592,  614. 

"  Parts,"  rebellion  against,  586. 

Patriotism,  79,  82,  106,  137. 

"Ponies,"  opinion  and  treatment  of, 
589,  590. 

Physique  and  health,  22,  32,  45,  47,  64, 
114,  117,  127,  141, 146, 147,  586,  595, 
597,  599,  605,  607,  615,  617. 

Preaching,  Prof.  Lincoln's  first  ser- 
mon, 47. 

Press  notices  of,  606,  608,  611. 

Pupils,  relations  with,  2, 7,  9,  10, 15, 18, 
20,  36,  588,  589,  590,  598,  600,  602, 
607-609,  616. 

Religious  experience,  character  and  be- 
liefs, 17,  19,  20,  24,  28  et  seq.,  30  et 
seq.;  37,  42-50,  53,  111,  124,  126, 
131, 137,  588,  594,  595,  598,  600,  611, 
615,  617. 

Religious  liberality,  19,  104,  106,  126, 
130,  144,  146. 

Reminiscences  of  student  life,  587,  588. 

Resemblance  in  character  to  Ensign 
Lincoln,  597,  619,  621  et  seq. 

Revised  New  Testament,  opinion  of, 
600. 

Saxon  Switzerland,  tour  through,  59  et 
seq. 

Scholar,  ability  as,  8,  9,  100,  544,  606, 
614,  616. 

Social  relations,  6,  609,  615,  617. 

Speaker,  ability  as,  594,  617. 

Sunday-school,  views  as  to,  593. 

Sundays,  how  occupied,  24,  29,  30,  47, 
52,  60,  69,  70,  77,  80,  117  et  seq.,  124, 
126, 129,  130,  132,  138,  ^44,  145. 

Slavery,  opinions  concerning,  82. 

Theological  studies,  45  et  seq.,  615. 

Tour  with  Tholuck,  84,  612. 

Travels,  5-7,  15,  51-147,  359,  541,  542, 
568,  569,  596,  602-604,  607, 612,  613, 
614. 

Youthful  appearance,  46,  586,  595, 

Vacations,  outdoor  life  in,  595,  599,  605, 
614,  617. 

Vassar  College,  called  to  presidency  of, 
615. 

War  (civil),  prophecy  of,  79,  82. 

Writer,  ability  as,  11,  614. 

Writings  not  included  in  this  volume, 

592. 

Lincoln  genealogy,  618. 
Lincoln,  Deacon  Heman,  622. 
Lincoln,  Prof.   Heman,  D.  D.,  22,   595, 

611,  619. 

Lincoln,  Henry  E.,  22,  619. 
Lincoln,  Joshua,  22,  611,  619. 
Lincoln,  Sophia  (Mrs.  Charles  D.  Gould). 

22. 

Lincoln,  Rev.  Thomas  Oliver,  22,  619. 
Lincoln,  William  Cowper,  22,  49,  619. 


INDEX. 


Lipsins,  Justus,  218,  426. 

Lis/i,  Franz,  Prof.  Lincoln's  appreciation 
of  his  music,  82,  86. 

Liverpool,  114. 

Livy  (Titus  Livius),  remembered  by  Prof. 
Lincoln  at  Valence,  1 27 ;  on  women, 
878,  379,  381 ;  alluded  to  by  Tacitus, 
408,  419 ;  mentioned  by  Quintilian,  425 ; 
his  criticism  of  Cicero,  482 ;  his  story 
as  to  augury,  510;  as  to  popular  reli- 
gion, 511;  record  shows  superstition, 
513;  nse  of  "senex,"  528;  Prof.  Lin- 
coln accused  of  writing  preface  to,  589 ; 
Prof.  Lincoln's  edition  of,  9, 592,  614. 

Locke,  John,  284,  318,  534. 

London,  Prof.  Lincoln's  visit  to,  7,  114- 
123,  (512,  614. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  example  of  vigorous 
old  age,  535. 

Lorini,  Padre,  438. 

Louis  Philippe,  86,  125,  428. 

Louis  XIII.,  125. 

Lucan,  M.  Annseus,  473,  475. 

Lucian,  308. 

Lucretius  (T.  Lucr.  Cams),  Prof.  Lin- 
coln's papers  on,  14,  315-336,  337-355 ; 
allusion  to,  20 ;  as  to  travel,  305 ;  coun- 
try, 313 ;  an  Epicurean,  517 ;  unlike 
Virgil,  518;  Prof.  Maxwell's  beliefs 
compared  with,  565. 

Lutheranism,  leaders  of  Evangelical 
party  :  Tholuck,  6,  56 ;  Hengstenberg, 
88;  Neander,  89;  Tauchnitz,  75; 
leaders  of  Rationalistic  party:  Weg- 
scheider,  54;  Ammon,  60 ;"  Young  Ger- 
man ' '  party  following  Hegel,  90 ;  per- 
secuting Baptists,  68-70 ;  centennial  of 
Reformation,  80 ;  church  service,  144. 

Luther,  Martin,  his  pulpit,  76 ;  studied 
by  Von  Ranke,  572. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  123. 

Lyndhurst,  Baron,  his  vigorous  old  age, 
535. 

Lyons,  100,  127. 

Macrobius,  Ambr.  Theodosius,  396. 

Maecenas,  C.  Cilnius,  marital  troubles, 
396  ;  student's  mispronunciation,  589. 

Magdeburg,  72. 

Magoun,  Nathaniel,  instructor  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  23. 

Mai,  Angelo,  487. 

Malcom,  Rev.  Howard,  Prof.  Lincoln 
baptized  by,  24,  30. 

Malle,  Dureau,  de  la,  218,  220. 

Manning  &  Loring,  620. 

Mansfield,  William  Murray,  Earl  of,  ex- 
ample of  old  age,  535. 

Marathon,  139,  140- 

Marheineke,  Philip  Conrad,  88. 

Mariui,  Monsignore,  428. 

Marius,  Caius,  417,  464,  468,  472,  479. 

Marquardt,  Karl  Joachim,  218. 

Marseilles,  127. 


Martha,  Benjamin  Constant,  499. 

Martial  (M.  Val.  Martialis),  description  of 
Bai»,  305 ;  as  to  women,  380,  385,  386, 
389,  390,  398;  as  to  schoolmasters,  381. 

Maxwell,  Prof.  James  Clerk,  on  atoms. 
324  ;  as  to  First  Cause,  343 ;  Prof.  Lin- 
coln's paper  on  life  and  character  of, 
544-567. 

"  McLeod  "  case,  79. 

Medici,  Cosmo,  426. 

Megara,  141. 

Meillerie,  94. 

Melancthon,  Philip,  154. 

Mellini,  Cardinal,  438,  442. 

Memel,  origin  of  Baptist  church  in,  68. 
80. 

Mendelssohn,  Felix,  86,  359. 

Merivale,  Charles,  estimate  of  Roman 
population,  218,  220 ;  on  Tacitus,  409, 
417 ;  description  of  Piso,  416. 

Messina,  Prof.  Lincoln's  visit  to,  133  et 
seq. 

Metternich,  Prince  Clemens  Wenzeslaus, 
example  of  vigorous  age,  535. 

Meyerbeer,  Giacomo,  86. 

Middleton,  Conyers,  his  Life  of  Cicero, 
477. 

Milan,  66. 

Miles,  S.  P.,  instructor  of  Prof.  Lincoln, 
24. 

Milman,  Dean  Henry  H.,  quoted  as  to 
Horace,  208. 

Milton,  John,  quotation  applied  to  Goethe, 
155 ;  quotation  showing  imitation  of 
Plato,  253 ;  student  of  Lucretius,  318 ; 
quotation  of  thoughts  similar  to  Lu- 
cretius, 332  ;  quotation  applied  to  Au- 
relius,  498  ;  vigorous  age,  533. 

Misenum,  111. 

Mock  programmes,  Prof.  Lincoln's  opin- 
ion of,  588. 

Modern  languages,  Prof.  Lincoln's,  acqui- 
sition of,  73, 74,  100;  study  of,  at  Propa- 
ganda, 110.  (See  also  German  lan- 
guage.) 

Mommsen,  Theodor,  as  to  Roman  history, 
467,  468  ;  defends  Caesar,  470 ;  depre- 
ciates Pompey,  472;  and  Cicero,  477, 
478 ;  as  to  philosophy  in  Rome,  514 ; 
his  praise  of  Von  Ranke,  573,  582. 

Monnetier,  98. 

Montaigne,  Michel  de,  525. 

Monte,  Cardinal  del,  435. 

Montreaux,  94,  96. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  294. 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  a  schoolmate  of 
Prof.  Lincoln,  611. 

Miiller,  Prof.  Julius,  instructor  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  5,  25,  58,  612. 

Miiller,  Prof.  Fried.  Max,  196,  206. 

Miiller,  Otfried,  110. 

Mure,  William,  190,  191,  203. 

Murray,  Prof.  James  O.,  S.  T.  D.,  his 
opinion  of  Prof.  Lincoln  as  a  scholar 


INDEX. 


637 


and  teacher,  9,  quoted  by  Prof.  Lincoln 
as  to  classical  studies,  601. 
Mycenae,  visited  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  142. 

Naber,  Prof.  Samuel  Adrian,  487. 

Naevius,  Gnseus,  537. 

Nagelsbach,  Karl  Friedr.,  205,  206. 

Naples,  visited  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  111. 

Napoleon  I.  and  III.,  125,  470. 

Narragansett  Pier,  599. 

Nauplia,  142. 

Neander,  August,  instructor  of  Prof.  Lin- 
coln, 6,  25,  568,  612 ;  his  learning  and 
lectures,  88 ;  torchlight  serenade  to, 
89  ;  anecdotes  concerning,  596. 

Needham,  Mass.,  place  of  Prof.  Lincoln's 
first  sermon,  47. 

Nepos,  Cornelius,  386. 

Nero  (Emperor),  his  bad  mother,  393, 
403 ;  Tacitus'  record  of,  406,  407,  410, 
416, 422. 

Nerva  (Emperor),  Tacitus'  record  of, 
404-406. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  similarity  to  Lucre- 
tius, 318,  339  ;  vigorous  age.  534. 

Newton  Theological  Institution,  Prof. 
Lincoln  a  student  at,  5,  25,  27,  37,  43, 
45-50,  611 ;  address  before  alumni, 
259-272 ;  essays  and  sermons  at,  591 ; 
Rev.  Heman  Lincoln,  D.  D.,  professor 
at,  611. 

"  New  York  Evening  Post,"  biographical 
sketch  of  Prof.  Lincoln,  611-618. 

"New  York  Tribune,"  editorial  on  Prof. 
Lincoln,  601. 

Nibby,  Antonio,  estimate  of  Roman  pop- 
ulation, 212. 

Niebuhr,  Bartold  Georg,  on  "Faust," 
153 ;  on  Aurelius,  484 ;  influence  on 
Von  Ranke,  572,  574,  and  on  history, 
578. 

"  North  American  Review,"  Prof.  Lin- 
coln's articles  for,  592,  615. 

Octavius.     See  Augustus  Caesar. 

Old  age,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper  on,  524- 
543. 

Olshausen,  Prof.  Hermann,  53. 

Olympiodorus,  212. 

Oncken,  Rev.  John  Gerhard,  Prof.  Lin- 
coln's acquaintance  with,  68,  70,  80,  81. 

Otho  (Emperor),  Tacitus'  delineation  of, 
407,  416,  420,  422. 

Ouchy,  96. 

Ovid  (Publius  Ovidius  Naso),  on  fashion- 
able travel,  305 ;  on  Lucretius,  317  ;  on 
women,  380,  386-388,  396 ;  on  his  wife, 
382  ;  on  vice,  389,  400 ;  on  reverence 
for  age,  541 ;  studied  by  Von  Ranke, 
571. 

Palo,  131. 
Panaetius,  519. 
Palmerston,  Viscount,  123. 


Parker,  Theodore,  fellow  student  with 
Prof.  Lincoln,  in  Rome,  612. 

Parkman,  Francis,  fellow  student  with 
Prof.  Lincoln,  in  Rome,  7,  612. 

Paris,  visited  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  7,  112, 
124-136,  147,  612,  614. 

Pattison,  Rev.  Robert  E.,  D.  D.,  594. 

Paulinus,  Suetonius,  416. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  79. 

Pernice,  Prof.  Ludw.  Wilh.  Anton.,  54. 

Perte  du  Rhone,  Prof.  Lincoln's  excursion 
to,  100-102. 

Peter,  Carl,  estimate  of  Roman  popula- 
tion, 219. 

Peyton,  Baillie,  in  United  States  Senate, 
40. 

Philermenian  Society,  Prof.  Lincoln  a 
member,  28. 

Piale,  212. 

Pierce,  Hon.  Edward  L.,  on  Prof.  Lin- 
coln as  a  teacher,  10. 

Pillnitz,  60. 

Pindar,  534,  542. 

Pirna,  64. 

Pisistratus,  190. 

Piso,  Cnaeus,  410. 

Piso,  L.,  416,  418,  493. 

Pitt,  William,  example  of  youthful  ma- 
turity, 538. 

Plato,  Prof.  Lincoln's  papers  on,  11,  13, 
14,  615,  (on  Platonic  myths)  232-258, 
(on  Platonic  philosophy)  259-272,  (on 
Republic)  273-295 ;  Lucretius'  affinity 
with,  320 ;  on  design,  345 ;  quotation 
applied  to  Sophocles,  377 ;  quoted  by 
Tacitus,  425 ;  quotation  applied  to  Au- 
relius, 494 ;  relation  to  Roman  thought, 
495,  514-516,  520  ;  example  of  vigorous 
age,  534 ;  on  old  age  and  conviviality, 
540  ;  on  immortality,  542. 

Pliny  (the  elder)  as  to  Augustan  Rome, 
211,  213;  on  travel,  299,  300,  303,  304, 
309,  310,  312 ;  on  longevity,  529. 

Pliny  (the  younger),  on  Roman  women, 
382,  397;  on  Tacitus,  403-405,  409; 
on  early  Christians,  501. 

Plumptre,  Prof.  E.  H.,  his  Life  and  Writ- 
ings of  Sophocles  (notes),  360,365, 370, 
374,  376. 

Plutarch,  on  custom-houses,  301 ;  Alex- 
ander's oak,  312 ;  anecdote  of  Sopho- 
cles, 377  ;  on  husbands,  384 ;  on  Ro- 
man women,  394,  396,  398,  399;  on 
Csesar,  469,  476. 

Poland,  Prof.  William  C.,  biographical 
sketch  of  Prof.  Lincoln,  10,  611-618. 

Pollio,  Asinius,  420,  477,  482. 

Pomerania,  68. 

Pompeii,  111. 

Pompey  (Cneius  Magnus  Pompeius), 
aimed  at  monarchy,  41 7 ;  relations  with 
Caesar,  465,  479;  Mommsen's  treat- 
ment of,  472. 

Porter,  Henry  Kirke,  gift  through  Prof. 


638 


INDEX. 


Lincoln  to  Brown  Museum  of  Archieol- 
ogy,614. 

Portici,  111. 

Preller,  Liidwig,  fellow  student  with 
Prof.  Lincoln  at  Rome,  7,  612. 

Press  notices,  "  New  York  Tribune,"  601 ; 
"  Harper's  Weekly,"  606 ;  "  Providence 
Journal,"  608 ;  "  New  York  Evening 
Post,"  611. 

Priscus.  Helvidins,  496. 

Probus,  M.  Aurelius,  211. 

Propertius,  Sextus,  on  life  at  Baise,  306 ; 
an  art  student,  312 ;  on  women,  380, 
381,  388,  389. 

Protestantism,  associated  with  Geneva, 
99 ;  its  irreverence,  104  ;  much  sermon, 
little  worship,  106,  117,  118 ;  vs.  Cathol- 
icism. 133,  135. 

"Providence  Journal,"  Prof.  Lincoln's 
editorial  on  Tyndall,  461  ;  editorial  on 
Prof.  Lincoln,  608  ;  Brown  Necrology, 
written  by  Prof.  Lincoln  for,  615. 

Ptolemy  (Claudius  Ptolemaeus),  432,  445. 

Puchta^  Prof.  Georg  Friedr.,  88. 

Pythagoras,  285. 

Quintilian  (M.  Fabius  Qnintilianus),  on 
smuggling,  301 ;  on  women,  389 ;  prob- 
ably taught  Tacitus,  403 ;  his  prophecy 
as  to  Tacitus,  425,  426. 

Randall,  Rev.  Silas  B.  ("  S.  B.  R."),  as  a 
student,  held  prayer  -  meetings  with 
Prof.  Lincoln,  30. 

Ranke,  Leopold  von,  instructor  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  6,  25,  88  ;  Prof.  Lincoln's  pa- 
per on,  14,  566-584. 

Raphael  Sanzio,  260. 

Rationalism,  opposed  by  Tholuck,  6  ;  De 
Wette's  tendency  to,  53;  leaders  in, 
Wegscheider,  54,  81,  Ammon,  60 ;  re- 
sults of,  90  ;  taught  in  Geneva,  99. 

Raiimer,  Prof.  Fried.  Ludwig  Georg  von, 
88. 

"  Rebel  Class"  (1835),  at  Brown,  585. 

Reggio,  137. 

Reich,  Prof,  von,  55. 

Religion,  in  connection  with  classical 
study,  12, 13,  19,  20,  356-358,  571 ;  re- 
ligious revival  at  Brown,  30  et  seq. ; 
Tholnck's  views,  52,  53  ;  religious  per- 
secution, 68-70,  427  et  seq. ;  at  home 
and  abroad,  69,  70,  80,  85,  124- 
126,  129,  130,  133-137.  139,  144-146; 
conflicting  theories,  88,  90,  99,  463; 
Spurgeon's  teaching  of,  119  et  seq.  ; 
Plato's  conception  of,  259  et  seq. ;  Lu- 
cretius' conception  of,  330,  333,  335, 
336,  344-350;  Sophocles'  teaching  as 
to,  359,  360,  363-376 ;  ancient  Roman, 
384,  398,  399,  503  et  seq.,  543 ;  Jewish 
and  early  Christian,  400,  401 ,  501,  502  ; 
Aurelius'  conception  of,  496  et  seq. ; 
religion  and  science,  illustrated  in  Prof. 


Maxwell,  562,  564-567 ;  Prof.  Lincoln's 
views  concerning,  27-33,  42—44,  48, 
588,  598-595;  Ensign  Lincoln's  be- 
liefs, 622-625. 

Renan,  Ernest,  484. 

Rhode  Island  Historical  Society,  Prof. 
Lincoln's  papers  before,  14,  568. 

Rhode  Island  Sunday  School  Conven- 
tion, Prof.  Lincoln's  paper  before.  60S, 
593. 

Ritter,  Prof.  Carl,  88,  575. 

Rives,  William  Cabell,  39. 

Robertson   (William  Bruce,  D.  D.  ?),  55. 

Robinson,  Rev.  Edward,  D.  D.,  receives 
degree  from  Halle,  80,  81. 

Rodiger,  Prof.  Emil,  instructor  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  5,  25. 

Roman  Catholicism,  110 ;  good  and  bad 
features  of,  60,  85,  106,  110,  126,  129, 
135  et  seq. ;  persecution  of  Galileo,  427 
et  seq. 

Roman  Women,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper 
on,  378  et  seq.;  Agricola's  wife,  384; 
Agricola's  daughter,  382 ;  Agrippina, 
390,  393 ;  Agrippina,  2d,  393,  421 ;  An- 
tonia,394  ;  Claudia,390 ;  Cleopatra,  390 ; 
Clcelia,  379,  380 ;  (Corinna),  387  ;  Cor- 
nelia, 398 ;  (Cynthia),  381 ;  (Delia),  381 ; 
Domitia,  394  Domna  Julia,  398 ;  Faus- 
tina, 492, 494 ;  Flavia,  401 ;  Fulvia,  483  ; 
daughter  of  Fundanus,  382;  Galeria, 
529 ;  Julia,  383, 391, 396 ;  Julia,  2d,  392 ; 
Junia,  Tertullia,  415,  530;  Livia,  390; 
394,  398,  412 ;  Locusta,  393  ;  Lucretia, 
380,  381 ;  Marcella,  391 ;  Marcia  380 ; 
daughter  of  Ovid,  396 ;  wife  of  Ovid, 
382 ;  Octavia,  390,  394,  396 ;  Poppaja, 
390,  400;  Pomponia,  401;  wife  of 
Pliny,  396;  Scribonia,  390,  392;  Te- 
rentia,  396,  529 ;  Theophila,  398  ;  (Te- 
lesina),  390  ;  Vipsania,  391  ;  Valeria 
Massalina,  390,  393;  wife  of  Varius, 
396;  wife  of  Vespillo,  390. 

Roman  religion,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper  on, 
503  et  seq.  See  also  Religion. 

Rome,  Prof.  Lincoln's  visits  to,  5,  7,  25, 
102,  105-111,  128-131,  612  ;  Prof.  Lin- 
coln's paper  on  Horatian  Rome,  208— 
231 ;  on  Roman  travel,  296-313. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  quoted,  107 ;  vigorous 
old  age,  534. 

Rosenberger,  Prof.,  54. 

Rothe,  Prof.  Richard,  85. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  93,  94. 

Rubini,  Giovanni  Battista,  86. 

Rugby,  614. 

Rusticus,  Jnnins,  489. 

Salamis,  141. 

Sallust,    mentioned  by   Quintilian,  425; 

on  period  of  life,  528. 
Savigny,  Prof.  Fried.  Carl  von,  88,  575. 
Saxon  Switzerland,  Prof.  Lincoln's  student 

tour  in,  59  et  seq. 


INDEX. 


639 


Sayles  Memorial  Hall,  Prof.  Lincoln's 
portrait  hung  in,  600,  608,  613. 

Scsevola,  Quintus  Mucius,  as  to  holydays, 
509 ;  his  religious  teachings,  520. 

Scaliger,  Joseph  Justus,  318. 

Schandau,  61. 

Scheiner,  Christoph,  436. 

Schelling,  Prof.  Fried.  William  Joseph 
von,  instructor  of  Prof.  Lincoln,  6,  25, 
88,  89,  568;  on  "Faust,"  153;  influ- 
ence on  Cousin,  233. 

Schiller,  Johann  Chr.  Fried.,  quoted,  2, 
367 ;  studied  by  Von  Ranke,  570. 

Schleiermacher,  Fried.  Daniel  Ernst,  suc- 
ceeded by  Twesten,  88 ;  student  of  Plato, 
232,  242  ;  influence  on  Cousin,  233 ;  on 
Von  Ranke,  575. 

Schmidt,  Prof.  Johann,  614. 

Schulze,  Johann,  574. 

Scipio,  Africanus  (the  younger),  disciple 
of  Panaetius,  519 ;  in  Cicero's  writings, 
526 ;  youthful  maturity,  537. 

Scylla,  present  appearance,  134,  138. 

Sears,  President  Barnas,  D.  D.,  instructor 
of  Prof.  Lincoln,  5,  25 ;  at  Halle,  58, 
81 ;  on  Tauchnitz,  75  ;  elective  system, 
602. 

Sellar,  Prof.  W.  Y.,  316. 

Seneca,  L.  Annseus,  quoted  by  Prof.  Lin- 
coln, 20 ;  on  Baise,  306 ;  nature,  313 ; 
women,  380,  386,  389,392;  Maecenas, 
396 ;  Jews,  400 ;  relations  with  Aure- 
lius,  490,  496,  497  ;  similarity  to  Chris- 
tianity, 521. 

Settele,  Prof.,  451. 

Severus,  Catilius,  grandfather  of  Aure- 
lius,  486,  493. 

Shakespeare,  quotation  applied  to  study 
of  Plato,  274 ;  to  Lucretius,  329  ;  Cor- 
delia compared  to  Antigone,  375  ; 
treatment  of  Caesar,  469,  475,  476  ;  on 
old  age,  528,  531,  541. 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  319. 

Shepard,  Stephen  O.,  classmate  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  25  ;  extract  from  letter  (note), 
46. 

Sheridan  Richard  Brinsley  Butler,  vig- 
orous age,  534. 

Sherwin,  Thomas,  instructor  of  Prof.  Lin- 
coln, 24. 

Sicily,  Prof.  Lincoln's  visit  to,  134  et  seq. 

Simonides,  534. 

Sitio,  Francisco,  436. 

Slavery,  Prof.  Lincoln's  opinion  of,  82. 

Smith,  William,  LL.  D.,  Prof.  Lincoln's 
visit  to,  115 ;  his  estimate  of  Roman 
population,  219. 

Socrates,  on  First  Cause,  345 ;  his  vigor- 
ous age,  534. 

Sophocles,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper  on,  11, 
13,  356-377,  615  ;  on  old  age,  530 ;  his 
vigorous  age,  534 ;  studied  by  Von 
Ranke,  571. 

Sorrento,  I'll. 


Spenser,  Edmund,  popularity 'of  "  Faerie 
Queen,"  170;  compared  with  Homer, 
190. 

Spurgeon,  Rev.  Charles  Haddon,  his  ser- 
mon recorded  by  Prof.  Lincoln,  117  et 
seq. ;  not  greatly  liked  by  him,  125. 

Statius,  Pub.  Papinius,  on  Roman  women, 
382. 

Stanley,  Dean,  Arthur  Penrhyn,  Prof. 
Lincoln's  criticism  of  his  views  on  bap- 
tism, 456  et  seq. 

Steffens,  Prof.  Heinrich,  88. 

Strumpell,  Prof.  Ludwig  Adolf,  614. 

Strauss,  David  Fried.,  scorns  name  Chris- 
tian, 54 ;  court  preacher,  88  ;  his  theol- 
ogy, 90. 

Strauss,  Rev.  Dr.,  145. 

Stuart,  Prof.  Moses,  81. 

Suetonius,  C.  Tranquillus,  record  of  Au- 
gustus' sayings,  213,  392  ;  as  to  Roman 
travel,  298,  299,  309;  his  lost  work, 
315. 

Sulla,  L.  Cornelius,  Tacitus'  reference  to, 
417 ;  Froude's  treatment  of,  464,  468, 
472  ;  Cicero's  opinion  of,  479. 

Sulpicius,  Servius,  477. 

Sumner,  George,  22. 

Susemihl,  Franz,  236. 

Switzerland,  Prof.  Lincoln's  visits  to,  6, 
25,  64-66,  93-100,  612,  614. 

Sybel,  Heinrich  von,  pupil  of  Von  Ranke, 
578,  580,  582. 

Tacitus,  Cornelius,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper 
on,  14,  402-426  ;  his  citation  of,  20  ;  as 
to  tax  collectors,  301 ;  on  Roman  travel, 
309,  310 ;  on  Roman  women,  380,  388, 
393, 401 ;  his  marriage,  382  ;  on  Roman 
vice,  389 ;  on  Jews,  400 ;  his  apprecia- 
tion of  noble  characters,  486,  493,  496  ; 
on  love  of  glory,  498  ;  on  early  Chris- 
tians, 501 ;  record  of  Junia  Tertullia's 
longevity,  530  ;  studied  by  Von  Ranke, 
571,  578;  quotation  from  his  "Agri- 
cola  "  applied  to  Prof.  Lincoln,  617. 

Tacitus,  M.  Claudius,  425. 

Tait,  Prof.  P.  G.,  549. 

Talleyrand  de  Pe*rigord,  Ch.  Maurice,  535. 

Tauchuitz,  Karl  Chr.  Philipp  (publisher), 
his  conversion,  75. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  his  "  Two  Voices  ' '  ap- 
plied to  "  Faust,"  166  ;  his  misconcep- 
tion of  Lucretius,  352. 

Teplitz,  63. 

Terence  (P.  Terentius  Afer),  on  CEdipus, 
372 ;  quotation  applied  to  Prof.  Lin- 
coln, 609. 

Tetlow,  John,  Prof.  Lincoln's  Latin  let- 
ter to,  589. 

Thales  of  Miletus,  referred  to  in  connec- 
tion with  Lucretius,  326,  340. 

Thames  Tunnel,  Prof.  Lincoln's  descrip- 
tion of,  117. 

Theophrastus,  536. 


640 


INDEX. 


Theremin,  Ludwig  Friedr.  Franz,  88. 

Thierry,  Jacques  Nicolas  Augustin,  574. 

Thiere,  Louis  Adolphe,  his  vigorous  old 
age,  538. 

Thiersch,  Friedr.  Wilhelm,  110. 

Tholuck.  Friedr.  August,  instructor  of 
Prof.  Lincoln,  5,  6,  25,  76,  79,  80,  612 ; 
his  character  and  ability,  6,  52,  56,  78, 
82,  133 ;  his  opinion  of  Goethe,  51  ; 
Christmas  at  his  home,  51 ;  influence 
on  Olshausen,  53 ;  opinion  of  De  Wette, 
53  ;  at  dinner  party,  54, 55 ;  serenaded, 
55  ;  at  social  gatherings,  57,  58 ;  tours 
with  Prof.  Lincoln,  64-66,  84,  612; 
visited  in  1857,  143 ;  his  anecdote  of 
Prof.  Lincoln,  595. 

Tholuck,  Mrs.,  her  kindness  and  merri- 
ment, 52 ;  at  social  gathering,  57,  58 ; 
urges  Prof.  Lincoln  to  take  good  care 
of  her  husband.  64 ;  her  friendship  for 
Prof.  Lincoln,  65  ;  pen  picture  of,  78  ; 
visited  in  1857, 143 ;  in  1878,  614;  in 
1887,  602. 

Thomson,  Sir  William,  324. 

Thrasea  Paetus,  416. 

Thucydides,  studied  by  Von  Kanke,  572, 
578. 

Thurlow,  Lord,  Edward,  vigorous  age, 
535. 

Tiberius  (Tiberius  Claudius  Nero),  influ- 
enced by  Livia,  390,  395;  Tacitus' 
record  of,  407,  410, 411,  422, 424 ;  ban- 
ishment of  Jews,  412 ;  his  contempt  for 
senate,  420,  492  ;  republican  sentiment 
in  his  time,  477. 

Tibullus,  Albius,  on  Roman  women,  380, 
381, 399. 

Tippelskirch,  Friedrich  von,  pastor  near 
Halle,  58,  59. 

Tiryns,  143. 

Titus  (Roman  emperor),  patron  of  Taci- 
tus, 404;  Tacitus'  record  of,  407,  411. 

Torrey,  Prof.  H.  A.,  schoolmate  of  Prof. 
Lincoln,  611. 

Travel,  Roman,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper  on, 
296-314 ;  Prof.  Lincoln's  travels,  see 
Lincoln,  John  Larkin. 

Trajan  (Roman  emperor),  Tacitus'  record 
of,  404-407,  414,  419. 

Tuch,  Prof.  Joh.  Chr.  Friedr.,  visited  by 
Prof.  Lincoln,  56 ;  Gesenius'  pun  on,  56. 

Turnebus,  318. 

Twesten,  Prof.  August,  D.  C.,  88. 

Tyler,  John,  39,  79. 

Tyler,  Prof.  W.  S.,  365. 

Tyndall,  Prof.  John,  his  comments  on  Lu- 
cretius, 318,  325,  327  ;  his  views  com- 
pared with  Lucretius',  338,  341-343, 
351 ;  Prof.  Lincoln's  critique  on  the 
"  Belfast  Address,"  461-463. 

Ugone,  Jacobo,  204. 
Ullmann,  Prof.  Karl,  85. 
Ulrici,  Prof.  Hermann,  57. 


Umbreit,  Prof.  Friedr.  Wilh.  Karl,  85. 

University,  German  idea  of,  91,  92. 

United  Brothers  Society,  28. 

Urban  VIII.,  pasquinade  on  his  theft, 
215 ;  first  encouraged  and  then  con- 
demned Galileo,  436,  444,  451. 

Vahlen,  Prof.  Johann,  614. 

Valence,  reminds  Prof.  Lincoln  of  Livy, 
127. 

Van  Bnren,  Martin,  described  by  Prof. 
Lincoln,  38. 

Varius,  L.  Rufus,  217. 

Varro,  M.  Terentius,  resembling  Cowper 
in  praise  of  country,  313 ;  as  to  Roman 
religion,  520. 

Versailles,  125. 

Verus,  Lucius,  worthless  co-ruler  with 
Aurelius,  494,  495. 

Verus,  M.  Annius,  grandfather  of  Aure- 
lius, 486. 

Vespasian  (Titus  Flavius  Vespasianns), 
his  survey  of  Rome,  211,  212 ;  Tacitus' 
record  of,  lost,  407. 

Vesuvius,  111,  112. 

Vevay,  93,  94. 

Vico,  Giovan  Battista,  quoted  as  to  Ho- 
mer, 190. 

Villeneuve,  94. 

Virgil  (P.  Vergilius  Maro),  quoted  as  to 
Olympian  theology,  199 ;  relations  with 
Maecenas,  217 ;  praise  of  Augustus,  297 ; 
his  age  at  Lucretius'  death,  315 ;  prob- 
able reference  to  Lucretius,  350 ;  read 
by  Roman  girls,  382  ;  on  death  of  Mar- 
cellus,  391 ;  on  religion,  509,  518 :  on 
old  age,  530 ;  studied  by  Von  Ranke, 
571. 

Visconti,  Ennius  Quirinus,  110. 

Vitellius,  Aulus,  Tacitus'  record  of,  407, 
420,  423. 

Voigt,  Prof.  Johann,  58. 

Voltaire,  Fr.  M.  Arouet,  quoted  as  to 
Lake  Geneva,  93 ;  not  admired  by  Prof. 
Lincoln.  98. 

Vopiscus,  Flavius,  on  dimensions  of  Rome, 
211,  212. 

Vrana,  140. 

Wachsmuth,  Prof.  Ernst  Wilh.  Gottlieb, 
57,  76. 

Waitz,  Georg,  582. 

Wakefield,  Gilbert,  318. 

Wales,  Prince  of,  dinner  party  in  Halle 
on  his  christening,  54,  82. 

Washington,  Prof.  Lincoln's  life  in,  5,  25, 
34  et  seq. 

"  Watchman,  The,"  Prof.  Lincoln's  let- 
ters to,  68,  71,  75,  79,  84,  85,  91,  93, 
102,  107;  editorial  on  Dean  Stanley, 
456. 

Wayland,  Francis,  LL.  D.,  instructor  of 
Prof.  Lincoln,  3,  611 ;  friend  of  En- 
sign Lincoln,  4,  24;  sympathy  with 


INDEX. 


641 


students,  15 ;  edited  college  catalogues, 
16 ;  revival  service,  31 ;  Tholuck's 
praise  of  his  "  Moral  Science,"  79 ; 
treatment  of  class  rebellion,  586  ;  elec- 
tive system,  602. 

Wedler,  biographer  of  Tholuck,  65,  84. 

Wegscheider,  Prof.  Julius  Aug.  Ludwig, 
his  rationalism,  manners,  and  appear- 
ance, 54,  SO,  81. 

Welcker,  Friedr.  Gottlieb,  (notes)  195, 
196,  197,  198. 

Weld,  Francis  Minot,  schoolmate  of  Prof. 
Lincoln.  611. 

Westcott,  B.  F.,  (note)  236. 

Westermann,  Prof.  Anton,  instructor  of 
Prof.  Lincoln,  57,  76. 

Whewell,  Dr.  William,  123,  275. 

White,  Hugh  L.,  appearance  and  meeting 
with  Van  Buren  in  Senate,  38. 

White  Mountains,  visited  by  Prof.  Lin- 
coln, 597. 

Wiley,  Henry,  cousin  of  Prof.  Lincoln, 
24. 

Williams,  Archdeacon,  his  Homeric  the- 
ory, 203,  204. 

Wilson,  Prof.  John,  his  remark  as  to  Ho- 
mer, 192  ;  instructor  of  Prof.  Maxwell, 
549,  550. 


Winckelmann,  Johann  Joachim,  110. 

Winer,  Prof.  Georg  Benedikt,  at  Leipsic, 
his  manner  and  odd  appearance,  57, 76. 

Wise,  Gov.  Henry  Alex.,  40. 

Witte,  Prof.  Karl,  57 ;  extracts  from  his 
Life  of  Tholuck,  65,  612. 

Wolf,  Fried.  Aug.,  190,  191. 

Women,  Roman,  Prof.  Lincoln's  paper 
on,  378  et  seq.  ( See  also  Roman  women.) 

Wordsworth,  William,  Mr.  Gladstone's 
reference  to,  201 ;  an  admirer  of  Lu- 
cretius, 319  ;  quoted  by  Prof.  Tyndall, 
351 ;  vigorous  age,  534. 

Wyman,  Prof.  Jeffries,  123. 

Xenephon,  on  conviviality,  540;  on  im- 
mortality, 542. 

Young,  Edward,  compared  with  Lucre- 
tius, 353. 

Zarncke,  Prof.  Friedrich,  614. 

Zeller,  Eduard,  (notes)  236, 243, 246,  248. 

Zeno,    compared   with    Epictetus,    490 ; 

with  Aurelius,  495,  497. 
Zoega,  Georg,  110. 
Zumpt,  Prof.  Karl  Gottlieb,  instructor  of 

Prof.  Lincoln,  6,  25,  88. 


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